NEW YORK (AP) - The bird flu virus that infected a Vietnamese girl was resistant to the main drug that's being stockpiled in case of a pandemic, a sign that it's important to keep a second drug on hand as well, a researcher said Friday. He said the finding was no reason to panic.
The drug in question, Tamiflu, still attacks "the vast majority of the viruses out there," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The drug, produced by Swiss- based Roche Holding AG, is in short supply as nations around the world try to stock up on it in case of a global flu pandemic.
Kawaoka said the case of resistance in the 14-year-old girl is "only one case, and whether that condition was something unique we don't know."
He also said it's not surprising to see some resistance to Tamiflu, because that had also happened with human flu.
The girl's Tamiflu-resistant virus was susceptible to another drug, Relenza, Kawaoka said.
He and colleagues report the case in the Oct. 20 issue of the journal Nature, which released the study Friday. The researchers conclude that it might be useful to stockpile Relenza as well as Tamiflu.
Both drugs are being stockpiled by the U.S. government.
The girl, who had been caring for an older brother with the disease, had been receiving low doses of Tamiflu as a preventive measure when the virus was isolated in late February. She later fell ill and was given higher doses. She recovered and left the hospital in March.
Kawaoka said it's not clear whether the low preventive dose had encouraged the emergence of drug resistance.
Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University called the report important and said it shows the importance of watching for drug resistance.
"It is not unusual to find the occasional resistant virus," he said. "It could be just a biological oddity, or we could see this more frequently.
"This is a blip on the radar screen, and it surely does mean that we have to keep the radar operative," Schaffner said. "We have to keep testing more viruses."
