By Chris Hardy

THE RUSH to stock up on vaccines to relieve the symptoms of flu has prompted speculation that the GlaxoSmithKline factory in Montrose might be saved from next year’s closure.

The plant produces Zanamivir, a key ingredient in Relenza, one of the most commonly used drugs to relieve the symptoms of a flu virus, and the only one in the UK licensed for manufacturing.

Yesterday, GSK acknowledged there has been speculation about the possibility of the closure of the Montrose site being delayed due to increased demand for Relenza brought about as world health organisations prepare for a potential flu pandemic.

But it added that to date the company had not asked the site to make more.

In a parallel development yesterday, grim contingency plans for dealing with a Scottish outbreak of bird flu were published by the Executive.

The plans detail how, in the event of an outbreak, poultry in an infected area would be slaughtered by methods including gassing, injection, and electrocution. The bodies of the slaughtered birds would be disposed of by incineration, rendering, or landfill.

Along with other products, making supplies of Zanamivir was always part of the GlaxoSmithKline factory’s exit production plans for 2006.

All plans are in place for closure by the end of next year and these include transfer of the manufacture of Zanamivir from Montrose to Jurong, Singapore, which is also within the GSK network of manufacturing sites.

“Whether we at Montrose will be asked to make quantities of Zanamivir over and above the current closure plans has not been confirmed,” said a factory spokesman.

“We are a demand-driven organisation and if the company asks us to make more we will, but we have not been asked.”

“Should there be a change in the situation as a consequence of the unforecast demand for Relenza, as always, staff at Montrose will be told first.”

Online clinics have reported that orders for Relenza and Tamiflu, which can both relieve symptoms of a flu virus, have quadrupled, and some have run out of supplies.

The Government has ordered 14.6 million doses of Tamiflu, which is enough to treat one in four of the population.

Dr Harry Burns, the Scottish Executive’s Chief Medical Officer, has said that the risk of avian flu in the UK is small.

But Aberdeen-based Professor Hugh Pennington, president of the Society for General Microbiology, has warned that the virus could mutate at any time.

Virologists believe a pandemic could strike when someone ill with human flu comes across a bird carrying avian flu and contracts that, too. The viruses could then mutate forming an unknown virus.

Meanwhile, the contingency plan setting out how the Scottish Executive would tackle an outbreak is detailed in a 67-page document, Scotland’s avian influenza and Newcastle Disease contingency plan, published on the Executive’s website.

The document says a key requirement in the event of the first case of confirmed disease would be the introduction of “infected area” measures. These would cover an area with a minimum 10 km (six mile) radius surrounding the infected premises.

This area would be subdivided into a “protection zone” with a radius of 3 km (two miles) around the infected premises, surrounded by a wide 7 km (four mile) “surveillance zone.”

A national disease control centre would be set up by the State Veterinary Service (SVS) to co-ordinate disease control measures across Britain, and liaison officers from Scotland would be based there to ensure good two-way communication.

The Executive’s Scotland-wide plan would fit in with five local plans already drawn up for different parts of Scotland.