Flu drug too hard to use

Millions of pounds of NHS cash may be wasted on the anti-flu drug Relenza because elderly patients cannot operate the complicated inhaler, says a study.

Half a group of patients over 70 were completely unable to operate the device after being given 15 minutes tuition by doctors.

Only a quarter were able to administer the medication properly. Of these, about half were unable to use the inhaler the following day to take the drug at home.

The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, will be a blow to GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures the 'wonder drug', and an embarrassment to the Government, which is spending £12 million a year to make it available to vulnerable groups such as the over-65s and those with respiratory illnesses.

The researchers who carried out the study at the Mayday Hospital in Croydon, South London, say that unless improvements are made to the inhaler, the benefit of Relenza will be lost to thousands of older people.

GlaxoSmithKline insisted other trials had shown its inhaler was not too difficult for the elderly to use.

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