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Indonesia says wants to make bird flu medication

Mon 14 Nov 2005

JAKARTA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Indonesia will seek licenses to make anti-viral drugs that can be given to bird flu patients to make up for a shortfall of the medication, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Monday.

Speaking at a news conference, Yudhoyono said Indonesia had not been slow to react to the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus, but said the government would review its budget, indicating more funds could be allocated to the fight.

He said seven Indonesians had died from bird flu, a higher death toll than the World Health Organisation which puts the number of confirmed fatalities in the country at five.

"We can't just depend on (imported) medicines. So from our capability we would like to have permission or a licence so we can produce domestically so we can provide sufficient medicines or vaccines," Yudhoyono said.

"We need up to 20 million tablets. We will increase from what we have now, which is around 750,000."

Yudhoyono did not mention specific makers of anti-viral drugs nor specify if by tablets he meant doses that he wanted to cover around 11 percent of the country's 220 million people.

But Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari later told reporters Indonesia had approached the WHO for the production of Tamiflu, which is manufactured by Swiss Roche Holding AG ROG.VX.

Many countries in Asia have been stockpiling anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu or Relenza, or have said they would make it themselves in the event of a pandemic.

The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain is endemic in poultry in Asia, where it is known to have killed 64 people.

Yudhoyono did not give a breakdown of the seven deaths.

The government last week said local testing had shown a 16-year-old girl had died of bird flu, but officials are waiting for confirmation from a laboratory in Hong Kong that is recognised by the WHO. That would make six confirmed deaths if the results from Hong Kong come back positive.

Health officials said on Monday that two patients who died over the weekend after suffering bird flu like symptoms, a 20-year-old woman and a 13-year-old girl, were being tested.
An initial local test on the teenage girl had proven negative for bird flu, they said.

Another four people have been confirmed to have contracted the virus in Indonesia but have survived.

Experts fear H5N1 could mutate into a form that passes easily among people, just like human influenza. If it does, millions could die because they would have no immunity.

Most human bird flu cases have been blamed on direct or indirect contact with infected chickens.

But Yudhoyono said mass culling was not an easy option.

"This is not as easy as thought because of financial matters," he said.

(Reporting by Muklis Ali, Tomi Soetjipto and Ade Rina)