Trial results expose Tamiflu's limitations in preventing pandemics

Independent researchers studying findings say drug carries side-effects and fails to reduce need for hospital treatment

Responding to the avian flu pandemic in 2006, the UK government went on to spend 424m on stockpiling Tamiflu over six years, believing it to be money well spent.

Since then, however, full information from trials of the drug has been released to independent researchers at the Cochrane Collaboration, a global not-for-profit organisation. They concluded that while Tamiflu did reduce the length of time that symptoms were suffered, the drug came with side-effects and did not reduce the number of people taken to hospital.