Free Republic

A small but significant percentage of the main influenza virus causing illness this winter in Europe, Canada and the United States has a mutation that makes it resistant to the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Scientists said they were surprised by the finding because they had believed that mutations of this type generally made the virus less potent and less easily spread among people. The predominant influenza virus circulating this winter is influenza A/H1N1. The Tamiflu-resistant form of the virus, known as influenza A(H1N1 H274Y), has been found with varying frequency in various areas of four...

Making oseltamivir, the antiviral drug that has become the world's first-line defense if an influenza pandemic strikes, is a long and complicated process. But in papers published online yesterday by the Journal of the American Chemical Society, two research teams say they have found alternative synthetic routes that could make oseltamivir--better known by its brand name Tamiflu--easier to produce and perhaps affordable for developing countries too. More than 65 countries have ordered stockpiles of oseltamivir; Roche, the Swiss company that produces it, is rapidly ramping up production capacity, and generic drug makers have started producing oseltamivir as well (ScienceNOW, 21...

TORONTO (CP) - North American sales of the drug oseltamivir have more than tripled in recent months, a trend public health experts see as evidence individuals are stockpiling the once little-used antiviral as a hedge against a possible flu pandemic.