Swine flu jabs 'still important'

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Health officials are warning a Tamiflu-resistant strain of swine flu makes the need for vaccination more important.

Five patients at Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales appear to have acquired the infection while being treated for other conditions.

They are thought to be the first confirmed person-to-person cases of a Tamiflu-resistant strain in the world.

Dr Roland Salmon said: "I wouldn't like people to go away with the idea that this is completely untreatable."

There have been nearly 60 cases worldwide of people developing resistance to Tamiflu but the virus has not passed on to others.

The UK has bought enough doses of Tamiflu, which can shorten the duration of swine flu and reduce the risk of complications, for half the population.

So any spread of a Tamiflu-resistant strain of the illness is a serious public health concern.

Of the five people infected with the new strain in Cardiff, two have recovered and been discharged, one is in intensive care and the other two are in isolation.

Health officials have stressed there was no risk to anyone else and tests were being carried out to confirm exactly what happened.

Dr Salmon, director of the National Public Health Service for Wales communicable disease surveillance centre, said the emergence of a Tamiflu-resistant strain was not unexpected in patients with serious underlying conditions and suppressed immune systems.

He said: "This is a very special set of circumstances, and it remains to be seen whether this would actually happen out in the community, where most of the people you would meet would have perfectly normal immune systems.

"One of the things this does say to us is, if anything, it makes vaccination more important and particularly vaccination of those people who have been top of the priority list, which is those people with underlying health conditions of the type which have given rise to the problem here."

"The one medicine, an important medicine that we've got a lot of, Tamiflu, these patients have developed resistance to.

"However there is another perfectly good treatment, Relenza or Zanamirvir, which are still available and to which these virus are not only sensitive but, for various biological reasons, we expect to remain sensitive."

Wales's chief medical officer Dr Tony Jewell has said treatment with Tamiflu was still appropriate for swine flu and people should continue to take Tamiflu when they are prescribed it.

According to latest figures, 46 people are currently being treated in hospitals across Wales for swine flu.

There have been a total of 21 swine flu-related deaths in Wales.

An equivalent of 1,350 people have contacted their GPs over the last seven days with flu-like symptoms.