When to prescribe Tamiflu?
Stephanie’s post below about making a vaccine for swine flu got me thinking about how the medical community is trying to treat this virus in the meantime.
This week, Danish health officials reported the first case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu. The World Health Organization called it an isolated incident and Roche, the company that makes the drug, said the medicine is still effective in treating the virus, known as H1N1.
Still, the case begs an interesting question of state health officials and doctors everywhere: when is the right time to give someone Tamiflu?
So far, Tamiflu is the most prescribed antiviral to help fight the symptoms of the virus. Medical experts agree prescribing Tamiflu to someone who tests positive for the H1N1 virus is a no brainer. It’s the best treatment out there. But whether to use the drug in an effort to prevent the virus is tricky.
Giving Tamiflu as prevention doesn’t guarantee you won’t get the disease and it could make it more likely that the virus adapts and becomes resistant to drugs, said Dr. Clifford Mitchell, director of environmental health coordination for the Maryland health department.
“When you give out a medicine, you run the risk that if you don’t kill every bug, the bugs that are able to survive are those that are able to resist that particular medication,” he said. “You don’t want to give this to everyone in the population.”
Two weeks ago, when three teens were diagnosed with H1N1 at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, officials at the facility made prescriptions for antiviral medications available to any staff member who wanted one and even offered to pick up the tab.
But typically, Tamiflu is recommended only for medical professionals who have had close unprotected contact with someone with the virus, and for people who have been exposed to the virus and are at risk for complications if they acquire it, such as pregnant women, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. (See these guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control.)
No cases of drug-resistant swine flu have been found in the U.S., but state health officials are paying close attention for possible drug-resistant samples when they do testing.
Drug resistance has been found in other types of flu. The most common strain of flu that circulated over the winter was almost completely resistant to Tamiflu.
Photo courtesy of AFP/Getty Images
Comments
We are a society that wants a pill for everything. We believe that all doctors need to do is just give us a pill. Our body has an immune system that does nothing but fight disease - we need to give it a chance to work and feed it healthy foods to keep it working..
Posted by: Carolyn Edwards | July 2, 2009 9:21 PM