Healthy people with mild symptoms of swine flu need not be given Tamiflu, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said, appearing to call into question how the drugs are given out in this country.
Dr Holden, the British Medical Association's lead authority on pandemic flu, said he thought the thresholds for issuing Tamiflu had been set too low, a policy which he fears will come back to haunt the Department of Health if the H1N1 swine flu virus becomes resistant to Tamiflu.
The GP, based in Matlock, Derbyshire, helped draft the clinical algorithm used by operators on the National Pandemic Flu Service telephone line, but said doctors are being encouraged to dish out a "pill for every ill".
A San Francisco teenager has been diagnosed with a strain of swine flu that is resistant to the common antiviral drug Tamiflu - an important milestone in the pandemic's evolution.