The WHO said on Saturday it had sent 2.4 million treatments of anti-flu drug Tamiflu to 72 developing countries preparing themselves against a possible H1N1 flu pandemic.
The drugs came from a WHO stockpile donated by drugmaker Roche Holding AG, Mike Ryan, the WHO’s global alert and response director, told a news conference in Geneva.
He did not name the recipients, but said they would be made public yesterday along with some preliminary epidemiological findings and an assessment of the deaths caused by the flu in Mexico.
“At this point it’s important that all countries have access to antivirals,” he said.
He also said WHO was not yet raising its alert to a full pandemic as the virus has yet to cause sustained transmission outside of North America.
But, he said, “we do not know how severe this virus will be” and reacted cautiously to flu experts who have suggested the H1N1 flu that has infected at least 665 people worldwide and killed 17, mostly in Mexico, is not as dangerous as first believed.
“I’d be very pleased if it turns out that this virus is weaker than it could be,” Ryan said. “However, history has told us that these viruses are very unpredictable. These viruses mutate, these viruses change, these viruses can further ‘reassort’ with other genetic material, with other viruses. So it would be imprudent at this point to take too much reassurance from studies.”
Earlier on Saturday, the WHO upped its tally of confirmed human cases to 615, with 17 deaths. The rise largely reflected recent confirmation of older cases in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Ryan, appearing as the latest host of WHO’s daily news conferences, meticulously rebutted claims from senior Mexican health officials that WHO acted slowly in responding to the crisis.
He said Mexican authorities had been cooperative through the process and “incredibly responsive to requests for information from WHO.”
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