World Health Organization alerted the member nations of an impending bird flu pandemic after reports of nearly 70 deaths in some of the south Asian countries a few months ago. Not many countries have, however, taken the alert very seriously as there has been no outbreak of the disease in any countries so far. But, the possibility of transmission of the disease from the birds to humans has considerably increased now in the context of migratory birds moving from one region to another during the winter. It is important therefore that the governments of poor countries should be prepared to face the emergency situation with stocks of appropriate medicines. Currently, Tamiflu, a patented drug of Roche is only effective drug against the disease. There are no vaccines or any equally effective substitute drug for Tamiflu in the market today. In fact, even Tamiflu is under a safety review of WHO following reports of death and liver failure among people who have taken it. Yet, a number of pharma companies including Indian giants like Ranbaxy and Cipla have approached Roche for license to manufacture its generic form expecting a windfall opportunity in the event of the disease outbreak. But, Roche has not been that generous in granting the permission to the generic companies initially. The MNC however signed a licensing agreement with a Chinese firm and identified 12 potential partners to produce Tamiflu only two days ago. The prospects of making available adequate quantities of the drug to various countries if the pandemic strikes in a few weeks from now are quite gloomy.

Vaccines to prevent the spread of the disease are also not readily available with the pharma industry although they are considered to be the first line of defense for checking mortality and morbidity caused by any pandemic by building immunity against the disease pathogen. Currently, the manufacturing capacity for the bird flu vaccine is concentrated in Europe and North America. Only about ten countries have domestic manufacturing capacities and clinical trials are just under way for most of these vaccines. No company will, therefore, be able to immediately commence commercial production if the disease breaks out now. This would mean that most developing countries will have no access to a vaccine during the first wave of the pandemic. India with its good number of efficient vaccine manufacturers should have met this contingency in a rather cool manner. Indian Immunologicals Ltd, a public sector company which is the second largest producer of rabies vaccine in the country, has the capability to produce bird flu vaccine. It is unfortunate that the Centre did not recognize IIL’s ability to produce the bird flu vaccine when it approached for permission some time ago. It is not late even now for IIL to commence the work on the vaccine if the approval is granted without any further loss of time.