Tamiflu Rant

Ok – this whole media perspective on tamiflu is really beginning to shit me. The drug, oseltamivir, manufactured by Roche, is shit. The way they have modified it to be available in capsule format is the major reason why the efficacy of it is so CRAP. It seriously decreases the effectiveness of the drug and allows a door for resistance to the drug by the virus. But hey – the aussie government decided to stockpile it. Yay, aren’t they brilliant. It is well proven that tamiflu is not as effective as the australian counterpart – Relenza (licensed by CSL). But hey, what does that matter. There are tamiflu resistant strains of H1N1 “swine” flu already out there, as well as Tamiflu resistant strains of real flu (H5N1 avian influenza, H1N1 non-swine influenza etc).

The boys down at AAHL are working on a vaccine – hopefully it will be as effective as their trial effort with a single injection multi-valent vaccine against H5N1 that was recently published. CSL is also doing a similar thing.

Media – please focus on a real threat – like the outbreak of avian influenza affecting Thailand/vietnam and countries like Egypt etc.