KUBU SIMBELANG, Indonesia – The biggest case yet of humans infecting others with bird flu prompted the World Health Organization to put the maker of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu on alert for possible shipment of the global stockpile for the first time, officials said Saturday.
No further action on the emergency supply was expected for now, according to the U.N. health agency, which called the alert part of its standard operating procedure when a case arises like that in Indonesia.
“We have no intention of shipping that stockpile,” WHO spokesman Dick Thompson cautioned. “We see this as a practice run.”
Meanwhile, Indonesia confirmed three more bird flu deaths as the country grapples with a spike in human cases. Bird flu is known to have infected 48 people in Indonesia, with 36 deaths – second highest after Vietnam’s 42 deaths.
A precautionary 9,500 treatment doses of Tamiflu from a separate WHO stockpile, along with protective gear, were flown into Indonesia on Friday. The tablets will likely be handed over to the Indonesian government, WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said in Geneva.
Despite the cluster of deaths, the virus has not mutated into a form easily passed among humans, experts said. Scientists have seen examples of bird flu passing between family members in a handful of smaller cases.
“If this virus had evolved into a form that is more easily passed between people, you would have seen some other cases (outside the family) by now,” Cheng said. “The virus hasn’t passed beyond the family.”
Bird flu has killed at least 124 people worldwide since the virus began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003.
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