Canada funds Tamiflu stockpile purchase

The national antiviral stockpile will be used to treat identified priority groups, agreed upon by a national expert advisory committee on pandemic influenza.

The federal contribution goes towards purchasing 9.6 million doses of antivirals, which is enough to treat 960,000 people. Further contributions from the provinces and territories are expected to bring the size of the national stockpile up to 16 million doses – the target recommended by the national expert advisory committee. This supplements the 850,000 doses of Tamiflu (oseltamivir) currently in the federal national emergency stockpile system.

Influenza viruses continually change over time. Usually, the changes are minor and people have built up protection in their immune systems from previous infections. Three or four times each century, for unknown reasons, a radical change takes place in the influenza A virus, creating a completely new strain of influenza that people have no immunity against. As a consequence, this new virus can spread quickly from person to person and develop into a pandemic.

“There is a limited global supply of oseltamivir and, in the event of a pandemic, this supply would quickly become unavailable. Purchasing antivirals now is a prudent step in ensuring Canada is well-prepared to respond to an influenza pandemic,” explained Dr David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer.

The antiviral purchase is one component of Canada’s overall planning for an influenza pandemic. The Public Health Agency of Canada, together with other federal government departments and provincial and territorial governments, has taken, and continues to take, action in a number of areas to protect Canadians.

Other activities include maintaining the Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan, which maps out how Canada will prepare for and respond to a pandemic, and managing a real-time alert system for serious respiratory illnesses, including SARS.