Health officials have said that Bahrain is seeking to stock up on the anti-influenza drug Relenza – an alternative to Tamiflu – as fears the virus may become resistant increase.“Tamiflu is still working, but we are in the process of getting Relenza,” Salmaniya Medical Complex infection control head Dr Jameela Al Salman told the Gulf Daily News.
“We have still not decided how much we will need but it is based on international data.”
The move follows international reports of H1N1 cases being resistant to the Tamiflu drug, the paper reported.
The Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) has announced a strain near the US-Mexican border. Meanwhile, other resistant cases have been found in Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong and Japan, say reports.
Health experts say the overuse of Tamiflu could lead to an increased resistance in some swine flu patients. Roche, the manufacturer of Tamiflu, has said it expects a 0.5 percent rate of case resistance based on clinical trials.
Dr Al Salman told the paper: “In any pandemic there will be some resistant cases. The resistance is in scattered cases, not a big number.
“So far internationally Tamiflu is the drug of choice. If we do get any resistant cases hopefully it will just be a few.”
Relenza is a drug called zanamivir that is marketed under its name by GlaxoSmithKline.
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