FDA Authorized To Allow Unapproved Uses Of Drugs, Testing

With increasing numbers of people contracting the new strain of swine flu, the United Nations health agency has raised the international pandemic alert to phase 4, on a six-point scale. 

Authorities have been taking swift action in order to avoid a global state of panic over the new strain of swine flu. Because of the investment made in the United States public health sector, there already exist available drugs and treatments that provide efficient countermeasure.

In order to get a hold on this sickness, the U.S Food and Drug Administration authorized Monday a diagnostic test and the emergency use of the flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.

The U.S government declared Sunday that the swine flu qualifies as a public health emergency, which gave the FDA the liberty to release such drugs without the usual proper clearance.

The FDA is now able to allow public health and medical personnel to administer Relenza, GlaxoSmithKline’s inhaled flu drug also known as zanamivir, and Roche AG’s Tamiflu, a pill also known as oseltamivir, uses that have not yet been approved.

Under the emergency use authorization, doctors have been changing recommended dosages of Tamiflu to prevent flu in children – even under the age of 1, whereas previously it was only to be used in children over the age of 1.

With more than 40 people having contracted this new strain of flu in the United States, the authority given by the FDA has even reached to include health officials and volunteer workers allowing them to distribute Tamiflu and Relenza.

In order to determine whether patients have the new strain, the rRt-PCR Swine Flu Panel diagnostic test has been authorized for testing samples. If the test reads positive, it will be presumed that the patient indeed has the new strain of H1N1 swine flu. A negative result however will be evidence that a patient does not have the virus.

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