Wellington, Oct 6 NZPA - Cold remedies don't need to contain pseudoephedrine which is misused as a pre-cursor chemical for illicit manufacture of methamphetamine, or "P" says an Auckland academic.

Professor Peter Black -- a specialist in clinical pharmacology at Auckland University -- today told a media briefing that other nasal decongestants were available.

Prime Minister John Key has asked his chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, whether it is possible to eliminate pseudoephedrine from the manufacture of cold tablets.

The Government was expected to announce in the next couple of weeks a range of measures it wanted to take in an effort to get on top of the problem of P addiction -- including actions to constrain the availability of pseudoephedrine in cold tablets.

The options presented to Mr Key were reported to include completely banning pseudoephedrine in cold and flu medication, or making it prescription-only.

An expert in the causes of allergies and airways disease, and the treatment of asthma, Prof Black said today that a nasal spray, such as xylometazoline, sold as Otrivine or Drixine, could work in a similar way.

"Xylometazoline spray is an effective alternative to pseudoephedrine".

Other causes of a blocked nose, runny nose or sneezing involved hayfever -- and the best treatment for that was a steroid nasal spray, which could also prevent sneezing and itching. These could take a few days to work.

Some cold remedies now contained phenylephrine as an alternative to pseudoephedrine, but this was not particularly effective as an oral medication.

"If a patient has a cold and requires a decongestant, a spray such as xylometazoline will be more effective than a cold remedy containing oral phenylephrine," he said.