GILD still seems to me the best Avian flu play:
Reuters
S.Korea to stock anti-flu pills in bird flu battle
Wednesday February 11, 3:38 am ET
By Cho Mee-young
SEOUL, Feb 11 (Reuters) - South Korea will stockpile enough doses of Tamiflu influenza pills to treat one million people as a precaution against the bird flu outbreak that has killed 19 people in Asia, a government official said on Wednesday.
South Korea has not reported any human victims among its 48 million people, but consumers have shunned poultry as the country battles bird flu outbreaks at its chicken and duck farms.
"Considering the worst scenario that 20 percent of Koreans get infected by a bird flu virus and of the total, 10 percent will need medication, the government will build a Tamiflu stockpile for one million people," an official at the Office for Government Policy Coordination told Reuters by telephone.
The World Health Organisation has previously recommended workers who are culling flocks of birds in Asia to stamp out the disease protect themselves by taking the Tamiflu influenza pill, produced by Swiss group Roche Holdings AG (ROG.VX).
South Korea has confirmed bird flu outbreaks at 19 farms since early December. Hundreds of residents in affected areas have undergone blood tests, but none have shown bird flu symptoms.
The virulent H5N1 bird flu virus has broken out in eight Asian countries, devastated poultry flocks and killed at least 14 people in Vietnam and five in Thailand.
The human victims are all believed to have caught the disease from contact with sick chickens but there are fears the bird flu virus could combine with a human flu virus and mutate into a new deadly disease that could be passed between people.
The South Korean government is now struggling to counter a steep fall in poultry consumption that has seen daily chicken sales at some big shopping centres drop to one third of levels a year ago, according to industry data.
The agriculture ministry has now designated Wednesday as "chicken and duck meat day", mandating cafeterias at government offices and agriculture facilities serve poultry on that day.
Doctors, veterinarians and consumer groups will also lead chicken-tasting events to highlight food safety, while local media have reported some poultry industry groups have offered to pay 2.0 billion won ($1.72 million) compensation to anyone who catches bird flu from home-bred poultry. ($1=1,166.2 Won) |
