The World Health Organization (WHO) today said it was “not recommending any travel restrictions” even as it was considering raising the pandemic alert on the outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico to ‘level four’, involving human-to-human transmission in a limited area.
A WHO official said the alert could also go up to level five, involving sustained community-level transmission. The official told reporters that the organisation was still monitoring the source and the spread of the influenza virus, suggesting it had not made any final determination.
The official added that the alert at level six was the highest, as it amounted to transmission of virus across countries. Indian generic drug companies, particularly Hetero and Cipla, are expected to be major suppliers if there is a global shortage of drugs like Tamiflu, which are used to fight the flu, analysts say.
Health experts held an emergency meeting at the Geneva-based WHO today to discuss the epidemiological evidence, as well as on how to prepare a vaccine based on the strains that have been examined. Given the long duration in production of a vaccine to attack the new strain, health experts believe it would be several months before a new vaccine is produced to combat the influenza.
Drugs such as Tamiflu proved to be a big antidote to the H5N1 virus three years ago. On Sunday, the WHO declared the new strain of swine flu — A/H1N1 — to be a pandemic. Governments in North America and Europe, including Switzerland, have stepped up their emergency operations to combat the spread.
Meanwhile, stocks of pharmaceutical companies such as GSK, Roche and Astra Zenica rose due to the pandemic warning. Unlike the outbreak of H5N1 strain in 2006, when most pharmaceutical companies were not so well prepared to meet emergency supplies, the situation now is vastly different with both research-based and generic companies in a position to offer immediate supplies of vital drugs.
Roche, which produces Tamiflu, has already sub-licensed its production to two Chinese companies and an Indian company, Hetero, in 2006.
Cipla is also in a position to supply the much-needed drug to other countries, provided it does not face any legal challenge either Roche, which holds the patent for the medicine.
