Anene Cilliers, a pharmacist at Diskem in Century City, said "every second prescription" handed to them was for Tamiflu.

Carelse Mehl, a pharmacist at the 24-hour M-Kem on Durban Road in Bellville, said that since the first confirmed Novel Influenza A (H1N1)-related death, they too had noticed a dramatic increase in the numbers of people requesting flu medication and masks.

Mehl said the situation has gone "totally ballistic" with "more than 2 000" people storming in daily, many wearing facial masks.

He said pharmacists at M-Kem, one of the only pharmacies in the province to still have stock of Tamiflu, were forced to work overtime as "paranoid customers" continued to inundate them with phonecalls and visits, some coming from as far as Worcester.

SHOOT: From complacency to panic. I bought about 5 face masks at the end of April, and was told Tamiflu could only be provided with a doctor's prescription.

clipped from www.iol.co.za Two weeks ago, Ruan Muller, 22, a Durbanville resident and science student from the University of Stellenbosch, was confirmed as the first casualty of the Novel Influenza A (H1N1) virus in South Africa. A week later, Johann Hack, from Somerset West died of suspected Novel Influenza A, but the cause of his death is yet to be confirmed. Since then, fear has spread faster than the virus itself, said Hassan. He also noted the escalating demand for Tamiflu, the five-day course of medication used to treat the virus. By Monday, Tamiflu could be found at only a handful of pharmacies in Cape Town. The medication had sold out weeks earlier at most pharmacies. She said they had found that many people were misusing the medication, which when used when not needed would cause the strain to develop resistance to it. Cilliers called on doctors to better inform patients of the virus and to adhere "to the actual procedure in dealing prescriptions".