The Greek government announced Tuesday that it will increase its stockpile of vaccines and drugs against a possible human flu by ordering 280,000 extra units of vaccines.

These will add to its existing stocks of 25,000 flu vaccines in a bid to prevent an outburst of pandemic after Greece became the first EU country struck by bird flu.

Health Minister Nikitas Kaklamanis stressed that the farm owner in the island of Oinousses, where a turkey infected with avian flu was found on Monday, had already been inoculated against human influenza, adding that the island's three doctors had inoculated almost the entire Oinousses population against the flu, since most of them were elderly and belonged to high-risk groups.

Kaklamanis said that half of the vaccines will be released on the market, while the rest will be reserved by the health ministry in order to cover the needs of vulnerable groups in the population.

Greece also ordered 40,000 boxes of the antiviral drug Tamiflu, which has been proved to be useful in preventing the spread of the flu virus.

The minister said that the larger part of the order would be in the government's hands between April and May next year.

He predicted that it was highly unlikely or even impossible that there would be an incident of the deadly avian flu affecting humans before that time.

The minister also revealed that Greece wanted to coordinate efforts outside the EU to prevent the spread of the disease in Balkan countries, during a meeting on this issue that will be held on November 15-19.

Tests were still being conducted to confirm whether the virus found in Greece is the deadly H5N1 strain which scientists fear could combine with human flu variants to create a catastrophic pandemic.

Source: Xinhua