Flu pandemic stimulates H1N1 online scam infestation

According to Monday reports of Sophos, British security software company, Criminal gangs are making millions of dollars out of the H1N1 flu pandemic by selling fake flu drugs via the Internet.

Sophos, said it had hindered hundreds of millions of fake pharmaceutical spam adverts and websites this year, many of them trying to sell fake antiviral drugs like Tamiflu to anxious customers. Tamiflu, represents an antiviral drug marketed by Switzerland's Roche Holding and known generically as oseltamivir. 

Tamiflu has become the frontline drug recommended by the World Health Organization to treat and slow the progression of flu symptoms.

 GlaxoSmithKline produces the other antiviral drug to fight against flu, Relenza.

As Sophos reported the majority of the gangs behind the sites selling counterfeit drugs were based in Russia. The top five countries buying fake Tamiflu and other medicines on the internet were the US, Germany, Britain, Canada and France.

Sophos reported criminal gangs were operating medicines websites branded as the "Canadian Pharmacy" to try to appear genuine. Its study found Glavmed, the network operated out of Russia, was possible to gain an average of $16,000 a day promoting pharmaceutical websites. However, company representatives consider the criminals can be members of more than one affiliate network, and some have boasted of earning more than $100,000 per day.

Sophos spokesman Graham Cluley said a "worrying trend" toward stockpiling Tamiflu had already been seen in Britain as Europe's worst-hit country in the H1N1 pandemic so far. 

 The World Health Organization, which declared H1N1 swine flu a pandemic this June, updated its guidance to doctors last week saying that antiviral drugs should be given even before tests found an at-risk patient to have the pandemic virus.

According to the latest WHO research, the pandemic H1N1 flu virus has already spread to 206 countries since it was first discovered in March. There have been more than 6,250 deaths to date, mostly in the Americas region.