Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Americans will increase spending on cold, cough and throat remedies to $3.6 billion this year as the pandemic spurs demand for influenza relief, according to Mintel International Group Ltd.

The U.S. is among the largest markets for over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, with sales likely to exceed $32 billion in 2009, Mintel said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The London-based research company predicts U.K. consumers will spend 428 million pounds ($709 million) in 2009 alleviating their flu symptoms with products that don’t require a doctor’s prescription.

The first influenza pandemic in 41 years is driving people around the world to drugstores and supermarkets to stock up on over-the-counter medicines, Mintel said. Sales in the U.S. of cold, cough and throat remedies jumped 13.4 percent in 2005, when the H5N1 bird flu virus began spreading outside Asia, threatening to spark a global scourge.

“Already, swine flu has received equivalent media exposure, and many Americans are worried about the virus,” Mintel analyst Diana Nhan said in the statement. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar trend-busting increase in U.S. cold, cough and throat remedy sales for 2009 and the early part of 2010.”

CVS Caremark Corp., the largest U.S. drugstore chain, has gained 27 percent on the New York stock exchange this year, compared with an 18 percent advance in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index. Walgreen Co., CVS’s biggest rival, has surged 56 percent.

The U.S. consumer spending on cold, cough and throat remedies this year represents a 1.7 percent increase over 2008, while the U.K. spending is a gain of 4.2 percent.

CVS, Walgreen

Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS and Deerfield, Illinois- based Walgreen will offer vaccinations against the new H1N1 influenza strain, and are compounding Tamiflu, Roche Holding AG’s antiviral drug that reduces the duration and severity of flu symptoms.

“Fortunately, most people who get infected with the H1N1 will do fine just with a few days of bed rest and care,” Anne Schuchat, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s immunization and respiratory diseases section, told reporters on a conference call yesterday.

While a majority of people infected with the virus have a mild illness, a small number develop life-threatening disease. Schuchat said millions of people have already contracted the pandemic virus in the U.S. and probably more than 20,000 people have been hospitalized after developing complications.

“The priority is to minimize the continuing serious illness and death that we’re seeing through these interventions like prompt use of antiviral medicines and vaccination as soon as it becomes available,” she said.

This year, total sales of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals may climb to 2.6 billion pounds in the U.K., more than 58 billion yuan ($8.5 billion) in China, and $3.4 billion in Russia, and increase again in 2010, Mintel’s Nhan said.

In the U.S., over-the-counter medicine sales account for 0.22 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 0.2 percent in Russia and about 0.17 percent in the U.K. and China, she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 29, 2009 23:57 EDT