Thursday, January 1, 2009

Bird flu of Strain Indonesia was Still Sensitive Tamiflu

BANJARMASIN - Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari says bird flu virus strain Indonesia remains sensitive to Tamiflu drug. This is related to drug sales model that is not done freely. "Only in Indonesia, Tamiflu is not sold freely, so that the only bird flu strain that is still sensitive to Tamiflu is the Indonesia strain," said Siti Fadilah in Banjarmasin, Wednesday.

In other countries, the Minister to continue, sales of Tamiflu have been free of the negative impact. In addition to going prone to abuse, sales trigger more freely strain of flu virus to become resistant to Tamiflu.

As in previous years, the Ministry of Health in 2009 to buy Tamiflu to be distributed to the major public health. According to Siti Fadilah, Tamiflu should be 1 percent of the total number of residents. In fact, if there is a case of bird flu, of stock could reach 2 percent. "Tamiflu should reserve owned, or have no patients," said the Minister, "It is a must according to international rules."

According to the notes World Health Organization (WHO), in January to 16 December 2008 have recorded 22 positive cases of bird flu in Indonesia. From that amount, 18 patients died. Until this time, since the emergence of patients who expressed positive with bird flu in 2005, Indonesia recorded a record number of countries with most bird flu patients in the world, ie 139 cases. The number of patients who died, according to the WHO, reached 113 people.

Associated with Tamiflu, Siti Fadilah disprove the existence of millions of doses of Tamiflu Rp 200 billion that expire, such as dilansir a national daily published in Jakarta in mid-December. Moreover, he said, departemennya never buy the type of drugs are up to Rp 200 billion. "We only buy the Rp 3.8 billion in 2006," said the Minister. However, he admitted some of the drugs purchased are already expired at the end of 2008. DIANING SARI

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