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Exploitation of Tamiflu can Produce Resistant Strains of Bird-flu Virus
Countries around the world are stockpiling Tamiflu in the belief it will help curb any future outbreak of H5N1 avian flu among humans.
Tamiflu, whose lab name is oseltamivir, is not a cure for flu but can ease its symptoms, thus aiding vulnerable patients such as the elderly, and reduce the time of illness, thus easing the burden on caregivers.
Scientists led by Jerker Fick, a chemist at Umea University, tested the survivability of the Tamiflu molecule in water drawn from three phases in a typical sewage system.
The first was raw sewage water; the second was water that had been filtered and treated with chemicals; the third was water from 'activated sludge,' in which microbes are used to digest waste material.
Tamiflu's active ingredient survived all three processes, which means that it is released in the waste water leaving the plant.
The finding is important because of the risk that Tamiflu, if overprescribed, could end up in the wild in concentrations high enough to let H5N1 adapt to this key drug, the authors say.
Flu viruses are common among waterfowl, especially dabbling ducks such as mallards which often forage for food near sewage outlets.
'The biggest threat is that resistance will become common among low pathogenic influenza viruses carried by wild ducks,' said co-author Bjoern Olsen, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Uppsala and University of Kalmar.
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