Criminal gangs make millions of dollars out of the H1N1 flu pandemic by selling fake flu medicine over the Internet, a Web security firm said.
Sophos, a British security software company said it had captured hundreds of millions of counterfeit medicines spam ads and Web sites this year, many of them trying to sell fake anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu to concerned customers.
Tamiflu, an antiviral marketed by the Swiss Roche Holding and known generally as oseltamivir is the front line drug recommended by WHO to treat and slow the progression of influenza symptoms. GlaxoSmithKline makes another anti-virus for influenza, known as Relenza.
Sophos said many of the gangs behind places was based in Russia and the five best places to buy counterfeit Tamiflu and other drugs on the internet was in the U.S., Germany, United Kingdom, Canada and France.
Sophos spokesman Graham Cluley said the "disturbing trend" toward saving Tamiflu had already been seen in Britain - Europe's worst affected country in the H1N1 pandemic so far.
"As more and more cases of swine flu .... come to light, it is important that we all panic-induced resist the temptation to buy Tamiflu online," he says.
"The criminal gangs who work behind the scenes of fake internet pharmacies put their customers' health, personal information and credit card information at risk."
Geneva-based WHO, which declared H1N1 swine influenza, a pandemic in June, updated its guidance to doctors last week to say that antiviral drugs should be administered before the test to conclude that a risk group of patients has pandemic virus.
Sophos says criminal gangs operated, medical websites marked "Canadian Pharmacy" to try to get real.
It said its research showed that on a network driven out of Russia, called Glavmed, it was possible to earn an average of $ 16,000 per day marketing pharmaceutical sites.
But the criminals can be a member of more than one affiliate network, and some have boasted of earning more than $ 100,000 per day, said in a statement.
The pandemic influenza H1N1 virus has now spread to 206 countries since it was first discovered in March. There have been more than 6250 deaths so far, mainly in the Americas region, according to the latest WHO toll.
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