PARIS (AFX) - Researchers have identified a mutated form of H5N1 bird flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, the drug being stockpiled around the world to counter a feared influenza pandemic, a study released says.

The strain was found in a case in Vietnam involving a 14-year-old girl who may have caught the flu from her brother rather than directly from infected birds, it said.

Sequencing of the virus showed that it had a mutation that made it resistant to oseltamivir, the lab name for Tamiflu.

However, tests on lab animals showed that the resistant virus is sensitive to another drug called zanamivir, commercialised as Relenza, the research said.

The study was due to be published next Thursday in Nature, the British science weekly, but the journal decided to bring forward its release because of its importance.

The findings "raise the possibility that it might be useful to stockpile zanamivir as well as oseltamivir in the event of an H5N1 influenza pandemic," said the authors, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

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