U.S. demand for Tamiflu appears to be surging, industry experts said on Thursday, suggesting some people are hoarding the antiviral drug amid fears of a bibird fluandemic.

“The number of Tamiflu prescriptions continues to increase with little or no reports of flu,” said Raulo Frear, vice president of clinical evaluation and policy for pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Inc.

Tamiflu maker Roche Holding AG said on Thursday it was suspending deliveries of the antiviral drug to the United States until it actually sees increased incidence of seasonal flu due to fears consumers would deplete stocks by hoarding the drug at home.

More than 67,000 Tamiflu prescriptions were dispensed at U.S. retail pharmacies in the week ending Oct. 21, according to health care information collector Verispan. That is nearly quadruple the demand from the same week last year.

Prescriptions for GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s flu drug Relenza have also shot up, Verispan said, although the number of prescriptions is minuscule compared to Tamiflu.

Walgreen Co. pharmacies have seen more Tamiflu prescriptions in the past month than in the same period a year ago, said company spokesman Michael Polzin.

“It is up significantly,” Polzin said, adding that some stocks in their warehouses were beginning to run low.

Roche expressed concern that consumers fearing a pandemic caused by bird flu would try to stockpile the drug, which is needed to treat normal seasonal flu.

Dr. Kathy Neuzil, who heads the pandemic influenza task force for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said the organization advises against personal stockpiles.

“There is no pandemic right now and the use of personal stockpiles would adversely affect the supply of antivirals for seasonal influenza,” Neuzil said.

HOARDING FEARED

“In addition to that, we’re concerned about the misuse of personal stockpiles,” she added.

Neuzil said the U.S. flu season generally starts in January, but the virus is unpredictable and variable. Two years ago, she said, the flu arrived in some places in late October.

The H5N1 avian flu strain has killed 62 people in Asia since 2003 and has recently been found among birds in Europe. While no human cases have been reported in Europe, health experts believe it is only a matter of time before the bird flu mutates into a form that can easily be transmitted among humans and potentially cause widespread deaths.

Frear of Express Scripts said the normal pattern for Tamiflu prescriptions is a spike when people start thinking about influenza in late September or early October. That is typically followed by a leveling off until the flu season hits in earnest in January, he said, with demand dropping back to near zero by the end of March.

“This year, I think it’s important to note that the plateau is not there,” said Frear, going by anecdotal evidence in the absence of current, hard data.

“That leads us to believe that people are starting to get Tamiflu prescriptions because of fear of avian flu,” he added.

Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, said he had received a “flood” of questions from physicians about patients requesting “personal prescriptions” of Tamiflu.

Schaffner, a liaison member of the Centers for Disease Control advisory committee on immunization practices, warned that such personal prescriptions could not only deplete supplies but that inappropriate use of Tamiflu that could lead to resistance by the virus.

“I can’t see any merit at the moment at the thought that every U.S family ought to have their own stash of Tamiflu,” Schaffner said.