Experts Push Antivirals While Public Questions Pandemic
Posted on: Thursday, 12 November 2009, 12:10 CST
A World Health Organization official said on Thursday that antiviral medicines can prevent severe H1N1 flu and should be given to pregnant women, very young children and people with underlying medical problems who fall ill, Reuters reported.
Nikki Shindo of the WHO's global influenza program said that in order to prevent progression to severe disease in at-risk groups, antivirals need to be administered early.
"This also holds for otherwise healthy people who show progressive symptoms. Patients with pneumonia also should be treated with antiviral medicines, antibiotics, oxygen, and balanced fluid management," she said during a teleconference.
There were only "isolated and infrequent" cases of resistance to antivirals like Oseltamivir, marketed by Switzerland's Roche Holding, according to previous statements from the WHO.
However, the pandemic virus had not mutated and that research undertaken since H1N1 emerged earlier this year had shown that antiviral drugs were safe in pregnant women, children under the age of two, and other vulnerable patients, Shindo said.
She said officials are now changing the recommendations to make them more explicit about early treatment.
Before administering antiviral drugs, many doctors have been waiting for laboratory confirmation that patients are infected with H1N1, and not something else.
"Doctors in places where the virus is known to be circulating should not wait for the laboratory information to start such treatment in high-risk groups," she added.
Healthy people should not take antiviral drugs unless their symptoms worsen quickly, and most H1N1 patients would recover without needing any medicines or hospital care, according to Shindo.
Shindo explained that the suggested early antiviral treatment could help ease the strain of hospitals in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Moldova that have reported being overwhelmed with patients with H1N1 flu.
"One way to save lives and lighten the burden on the health care system is to prevent severe disease," she said.
Meanwhile, scientists and health authorities in Europe are facing angry questions about why H1N1 has not caused death and destruction on the scale first feared.
Many outlets in the British and French media feel that the pandemic has been "hyped" by medical researchers to further their own cause, boost research grants and line the pockets of drug companies.
The WHO said that H1N1 has mostly hit the younger population -- adults in their 20s and 30s and children -- and the global death count so far is more than 6,000.
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Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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