Pharmac plans pandemic stockpile

The Government is attempting to secure a guaranteed supply of antibiotics in the event of an influenza pandemic.

Its pharmaceutical management agency, Pharmac, has issued a proposal to purchase 12.3 million tablets and capsules, 341,000 vials and 228,150 bottles of antibiotic medicines.

Although antibiotics would not directly combat bird flu or a similar virus, the Government says the medicine could help treat or prevent secondary infections. In the 1918 influenza pandemic, most deaths were caused by secondary bacterial infections.

Health Minister Pete Hodgson said creating a national stockpile of antibiotics would put New Zealand "ahead of the curve" as demand for antibiotics was expected to spike dramatically if a pandemic was declared.

The World Health Organisation has warned there is a high risk of the bird flu now spreading in the northern hemisphere mutating to a virulent human influenza which could become a global pandemic.

This could mean 1.6 million people would fall ill in New Zealand, with 1.3 million of them - a third of the population - sick at the peak of the wave, between weeks three and five after any pandemic struck.

If the pandemic follows the pattern of the 1918 illness, 2 per cent - or 33,000 people - are expected to die.

The Government has said that because it is not certain just when the next pandemic will occur, the antibiotics would be rotated through hospital pharmacies with normal hospital antibiotic supplies. This will mean that if a pandemic did occur, there would be a large stockpile of antibiotics, but they would be relatively fresh.

Pharmac said that despite this, there was likely to be some wastage as shelf lives of product expired.

Suppliers were expected to deliver stock directly to hospitals between October 2006 and January 2007, the agency said.

The antibiotics being sought include Synermox, Augmentin, M-cefasolin, Trisul suspension, Doxine, Flucloxacillin, and Flucloxin, according to Jacki Evans, Pharmac's group manager.

Pharmac has previously estimated that securing an antibiotic stockpile would cost up to $10 million.

The Director General of Health will be able to set priorities for who gets any government or district health board medicines used to combat an epidemic.

- NZPA