Health alert over Tamiflu, bird flu spreads in Myanmar

By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese health officials issued an alert over giving flu drug Tamiflu to teenagers on Wednesday as Myanmar reported a further outbreak of bird flu in poultry.

Tamiflu is regarded as one of the main drugs effective against a bird flu pandemic, but a series of cases, including teen suicides in Japan, have fueled concern the drug could induce psychiatric symptoms.

Swiss drug-maker Roche said on Tuesday that new data from Japan and the United States indicated there was no established causal link between Tamiflu and psychiatric symptoms.

But early on Wednesday, Japan's Health Ministry said it had ordered the importer of Tamiflu to warn doctors against giving it to teenagers after two new cases of abnormal behavior were reported.

Two teenagers injured themselves in February and March by falling from buildings after taking the drug, a ministry news release said.

A total of 15 young people have been injured or killed in similar incidents since 2004, Kyodo news agency reported the ministry as saying later.

Countries around the globe have been stockpiling Tamiflu, which health officials widely regard as effective in treating symptoms of H5N1 infection if given early enough.

There is no commercially available vaccine for the virus, which has killed at least 169 people around the globe since the disease re-emerged in Asia in 2003.