Stockpiling antivirals?
How many people are spinning a line to the National Pandemic Flu Service to build up a stockpile of antivirals?
The question arises because of huge discrepancies between the estimates of the number of new swine flu cases last week – 30,000 – and the authorisations of Tamiflu made by the NPFS – around 30,000 a day.
Either there are a lot more cases out there than the HPA estimates, or tens of thousands of people who aren’t suffering from H1N1 flu are ringing up, describing their “symptoms”, and getting authorisation for antiviral treatment. Perhaps they all think they might have flu; or perhaps they think it might be nice to have some Tamiflu tucked away in the medicine cupboard for when they do get it.
On the basis of the HPA Weekly report for the week ending 2 August, at least five times as many people are getting Tamiflu as are getting flu.
Here's the graph from the report showing the number of assessments and antiviral authorisations. It's clear from the figures that far more people are getting antivirals than the 30,000 supposed to have acquired H1N1 flu over the period.
This makes a bit of a mockery of having stopped household prophylaxis, in order to save money and conserve supplies. But there were always question marks over how easy it would be to police the provision of Tamiflu once GPs were out of the equation.
The Government’s stockpile of almost 30 million doses of Tamiflu was reported in 2007 to have cost £300 million. So the cost of providing it to people who do have have the disease and may never get it is not trivial.
The Department of Health said from the start that it would be relying on the public to be responsible in using the system. “There is no need to jump the queue, because the UK is in a strong position when it comes to Tamilflu” a spokesman said when fears were raised. “There is more than enough to cover everyone likely to catch the virus in the months ahead.”
Anonymous (not verified) wrote,
Tue, 11/08/2009 - 09:16
It's partly because we've given up testing - there's absolutely no point swabbing that many people, and, frankly, it would overwhelm lab capacity. There's also absolutely no doubt that, as you suspect, thousands are getting something of dubious clinical value which they don't need in the first place...
Martin Burgess (not verified) wrote,
Tue, 11/08/2009 - 09:31
The disparity between those receiving Tamiflu and the official government figures given for Swine Flu cases does not prove how many are faking it – rather it proves how the government are faking the figures.
Each person provided with Tamiflu has been diagnosed (no matter how poorly) as having Swine Flu. The number of prescriptions and cases should match, but of course they don’t purely because those cases reported to, and diagnosed by, the National Pandemic Flu Service are not counted.
The government are only counting the cases reported to GPs – whilst at the same time they are running a publicity campaign instructing us not to see our GPs but to report only to the National Pandemic Flu Service - where case numbers aren’t collated. We are told only to report to GPs in exceptional circumstances, so it’s hardly surprising that the number of people doing so is reducing.
This Independent article is revealing :
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/...
Obviously the amount of Tamiflu prescribed is a more accurate measure of people diagnosed with Swine Flu and it would seem to show the official figures to be wrong by a factor of 7.
And why has the newsworthy fact not been mentioned that we appear to have leapfrogged the world to take our usual place at the top of this pandemic? Even using the official figures restricted to GP reports, we still head the world by a gigantic margin in the most recent comparable figures.
Mexico’s neighbour the United States has 6 times England’s population but total cases there are estimated at around 7 times fewer than just those reported to GPs in England. Our nearest neighbour France has approximately 300 times fewer total cases than GP reports alone in England.
And now it seems those GP reports should be multiplied by 7 to get a more accurate picture.
Ashley Ford (not verified) wrote,
Sat, 21/11/2009 - 10:00
An additional question is how many QUALY will be saved by giving out the Tamiflu ?
The cost of £300 million needs to provide at least 10,000 QUALY
according to the figures at http://www.nice.org.uk/newsroom/features/measuringeffectivenessandcostef... be approved by NICE.
A drug company salesman probably got a large bonus for that sale.
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