China has confirmed reports that Chinese poultry farmers have been using the human anti-flu drug amantadine in poultry, which can cause drug-resistant strains of the virus to develop. It says it will stop the practice. But the controls will be too late for the “Z” strain of the H5N1 virus that has spread through southeast Asia. That strain, which has so far killed 54 people and which health officials fear might develop into a human pandemic, is already resistant to the drug.On 17 June the Washington Post revealed that amantadine has been used in China “since the late 1990s” to control and prevent bird flu outbreaks on chicken farms. It quoted Chinese pharmaceutical executives and veterinarians who said the drug was cheap, readily available and “widely used in the entire country” both to treat outbreaks and for routine prevention, in the same way that antibiotics are commonly used in livestock.
