WHO: Tamiflu drug is expired

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), poor Asian countries are facing a dilemma about whether to store Tamiflu when their countries' drug depots are about to expire.

WHO said that Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines will be the first countries to have their drug depots expired in December this year. The stockpile enough to serve Indonesia's 1.6 million people will also expire in 2009 .

According to Peter Cordingley, a WHO spokesman for the East Pacific region, the danger is that the virus is mutating so millions of pills stored today are unlikely to work tomorrow, while poor countries are budget hungry for AIDS, measles . He thinks the best way is to obtain patent rights to cheap drugs like Indonesia to reduce costs.

A Filipino health official points to the barrels of Tamiflu (Photo: AP)

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