Citing the long manufacturing lead times and high demand, Swiss drugmaker Roche said it will not be able to meet China's demand for Tamiflu, the first line of defense against a potential bird flu pandemic outbreak, though it suggested it would work with Beijing to raise production, possibly allowing the government or other Chinese companies to produce the drug, the AFP reported.

It is unknown how much Tamiflu China has stockpiled. The news came as a bird flu outbreak killed 545 chickens and ducks in a village in Hunan Province, central China, and prompted authorities to destroy 2,487 others, the government has said. Earlier cases in Inner Mongolia and Anhui Province resulted in the death of 2,600 chickens and ducks and 500 geese respectively. Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia since surfacing in 2003, although there have been no reports of human cases of bird flu in China.

Source: China Economic Review