Samantha Millard, 18, was told she had the virus after describing her symptoms to staff with no medical training.
She took just three pills before developing blisters all over her body, and was today in intensive care unable to breathe on her own.
She is being treated at a specialist burns unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital where doctors fear she may have the life-threatening Stevens-Johnson syndrome which causes the skin to peel off.
The syndrome affects just three in a million people and is usually triggered by an adverse reaction to medication. The mortality rate is around 15 per cent.
Victims develop terrible scarring all over their bodies and well as severe conjunctivitis which can lead to blindness and mouth infections which can stop them eating.
Samantha’s devastated mother Deborah, 41, told The Sun her family from Bicester in Oxfordshire were furious that Samantha had been wrongly given the treatment.
Sitting at Samantha’s bedside with her other daughter Charley, 23, she said: ‘It shouldn’t be the case that people with no medical background can make these decisions.
‘These people are just Joe Bloggs off the street. My daughter could die because of this. Her condition is getting worse.
Earlier this year the Daily Mail revealed some of the call centres speaking to people with suspected swine flu were manned by 16-year-olds with just three hours training.
A Roche spokeswoman said the incident would be investigated and could not rule out the role of Tamiflu in triggering the syndrome.
Source: The Daily Mail, 8 December 2009.
