SHOOT: I watched the topic of bird flu discussed on Oprah, and Oxford also alludes to both the Tsunami (his 17 year old daughter was wandering around on a beach in Sri Lanka at the time)and New Orleans and recent examples of tragedies that could have been avoided by early warning systems. There is some infrastructure in place, but not enough. "We must take it seriously," he says. After all, a pandemic will trump all the major disasters we have seen in the past, put together: war, famine, Aids, etc.
How does a virus work? Why is it so dangerous to us?
The question does emerge then: how can a little virus that has 8 genes pull us - people who have 100 000 genes - into bed and kill us? The experts who came up with Tamiflu have found a way to prevent the virus from budding - a vital stage where the virus gets stuck to the surface of cells, so that the drug aborts the infection, and the immune system then kicks into action.
Nick van der Leek speaks to Professor John Oxford, Scientific Director of Retroscreen Virology at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospital, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry
We’re actually here to launch Tamiflu, so I am surprised that Oxford paints such a rich background.
He hardly mentions Tamiflu, and the young woman beside me (a pharmacist) confirms that at these launches (and they attended a similar one last week) the experts try not to bore their audience.
Oxford talks about a pre-emptive strike. And Tamiflu is part of how we combat bird flu. If there is an outbreak, and less than 50 people in a given area are infected, and one has a deluge of Tamiflu, you can break the back of this pandemic.
He also says: "For the history of humankind we have been powerless (against this sort of thing), but now we are not."
Visit www.retroscreen.com for more information
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The above interview was published on 25/05/2006.
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