Faced with growing evidence that avian influenza is spreading in birds, the World Health Organization on Wednesday signed an agreement with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding to build up its stockpile of medicines in case of a pandemic in humans.
Under the agreement, Roche will reserve three million treatments of its Tamiflu antiviral medicine for use by the UN agency in case of a worldwide human pandemic of avian flu.
"It&39;s just enough to deal with an initial outbreak," said Jong-Wook Lee, director-general of the WHO. "But clearly this is not enough to deal with a full pandemic."
The agency says only 57 people in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia have died, mainly from contact with infected birds. The virus has killed millions of chickens and led to preventive culling across Asia since late 2003. Sustained human-to-human infection has not yet been recorded. But the World Health Organization warns that bird flu, which first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, could mutate genetically, making it easier for humans to catch and transmit the disease among themselves.
Signs the disease has spread recently to birds in Siberia and Kazakhstan are adding to concerns, the WHO says. A panel of European Union experts will convene Thursday in Brussels to discuss measures to prevent the spread of bird deaths to European poultry.
When asked whether he thought a widespread outbreak in humans was imminent, Lee said: "We don&39;t know when it will come. But it would be hugely irresponsible if the WHO and member states did not take preventive measures now."
Roche declined to give figures for its stockpiles of Tamiflu.
A spokeswoman for the company, Martina Rupp, said it took from 12 to 18 months to deliver the drug after an order was placed- a relatively long time due to a complicated production process.