INTERNET entrepreneurs selling face masks and rubber gloves to ward off flu were accused today of scaremongering.

Dozens of UK-based websites have sprung up since bird flu reached Europe two weeks ago.

The antiviral drug Tamiflu is also being sold online, but from websites outside the UK. The average price for a 10-dose course is Pounds 70. However, pharmacists warn there is no way of knowing whether purchases are genuine.

One

website, selling disposable masks for Pounds 3 and latex gloves for 20p a pair, took more than 100 orders in its first five days of trading.

Visitors to the site, run by Tao Technologies Ltd, are told: "It is important to buy your bird flu protection stocks now, before the flu pandemic starts. Once the first case of human-to-human infection is confirmed, or the bird flu reaches the UK, panic buying will start and stocks will be wiped out in no time."

But the Government and the World Health Organisation have advised against buying masks.

Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said: "For the general public, [masks] probably wouldn't be of any great value."

Tory shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "It is unacceptable that companies may be deliberately frightening the public in order to profit out of this situation."

Geoff Pope, Lib-Dem health spokesman on the London Assembly, said: "It is disgraceful that there are websites deliberately preying on people's fears about bird flu." The Department of Health said messages about flu should be "measured and proportionate".

Tao's owner, businessman John Morrall, said: "I am an entrepreneur filling a need, not some greedy corporation."

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