Don't rely on drugs to delay flu pandemic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vaccines and drugs will not be enough to slow or prevent a pandemic of influenza, according to a U.S. government report released on Tuesday.

The report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirms what most experts have been stressing for years -- that the pharmaceutical industry cannot be relied on alone to protect the world from bird flu.

The GAO, the investigational arm of Congress, reached its own conclusion independently.

"The use of antivirals and vaccines to forestall the onset of a pandemic would likely be constrained by their uncertain effectiveness and limited availability," the GAO report reads.

Health experts almost universally agree that a global epidemic -- a pandemic -- of influenza is inevitable and even overdue. Flu is always circulating but, every few decades, a completely new strain emerges and makes millions sicker than usual.

One prime suspect is the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. It is entrenched in poultry across much of Asia, the Middle East and Africa, pops up regularly in Europe and has forced the slaughter of hundreds of millions of birds.

It also occasionally infects people, killing 219 of the 351 people infected in 14 countries since 2003.

Quick use of antiviral drugs, especially Roche AG and Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Tamiflu, can save lives. A vaccine would also help, the GAO report noted.

But supplies of both are low and a vaccine would have to be formulated to match the precise strain causing a pandemic -- a process that currently takes months.