ousia's update: half year results, page-19

just found this showing that Tony Abbott agrees that prophylaxis is the major use of antivirals, I know it's old but it reflects long term goals and the scientific consensus. Note the mention of "long acting antivirals" which can only mean LANI.

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2005-ta-abb251005a.htm
Country report for Pandemic Flu Conference, Ottawa, 25 October 2005, prepared by Tony Abbott, Minister for Health and Ageing.
(extract)At present, the anti-virals Tamiflu and Relenza are thought to be more effective at prevention than cure. On current evidence, it seems that taking anti-virals can prevent people becoming infected. Anti-virals can reduce the severity and shorten the duration of illness if taken early but more research is needed into their effect on mortality for those who are already symptomatic. The draft Management Plan earmarks 10 per cent of the anti-viral stockpile for treatment and reserves 90 per for prophylaxis but this would be reconsidered on the basis of clinical effectiveness dealing with any pandemic flu strain. While pandemic flu was present in Australia in isolated places only, the Government would have to consider whether to impose internal quarantine restrictions. Any such decision would turn on an expert assessment of the likely value of quarantine based on the infectiousness of the disease and the speed with which it might lose virulence.

The second phase in the handling of pandemic influenza, once it was clear that it was widely present in Australia, would focus on the maintenance of essential services. During the essential services phase, people with high exposure to disease would, as far as possible, be protected with anti-virals. This would include most doctors and nurses and some other health professionals. Police and emergency service workers; water, sewerage, power and distribution workers; and key officials dealing with the pandemic outbreak could also receive anti-virals if they had been exposed to disease.

Even though it's the world's largest stockpile on a per capita basis, the current supply of anti-virals is sufficient to protect Australia's estimated one million essential service workers for about six weeks only, not the likely six months duration of any pandemic. In addition, anti-virals are not recommended for use in prophylaxis for longer than six weeks at a time. In the absence of an effective candidate vaccine or much larger stockpiles of long-acting anti-virals, large numbers of essential service workers are likely to be unprotected for much of the pandemic along with the general public."

and this

"The Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, has been very frank about the inadequacy of Australian stockpiles:

Certainly, we don’t have anything like enough antivirals to protect the entire population. At present, we have enough antivirals to protect one million essential service workers for about six weeks.14

He has also been very candid about supply constraints being a clear reason for the limited stockpiles:

[A]t the moment there are no additional antivirals anywhere in the world . . . If there were more antivirals to be had, by all means [we would expand stockpiles]. But on the best evidence we have, there aren’t.15"

And this is in the best prepared country in the world!

When will stockpiles be complete? There are billions more potential Relenza sales!