Flu strain becoming medicate -proof - Cold & Flu

Flu strain developing resistance to medicate s

Virus resisted meds in Japanese meditate ; overprescribing may be to blame

CHICAGO - A less common strain of flu has shown hints of resistance to two flu medicate s among patients in a small meditate in Japan, a country known for prescribing the medicate s more frequently than anywhere else in the world.

Signs of resistance to the medicate s Tamiflu and Relenza turned up among a few patients who had type B influenza, normally a milder flu causing smaller outbreaks than the more common type A.

The findings were troubling to researchers because they suggested doctors will eventually need new medicate s to treat medicate -resistant flu if the viruses become more prevalent.

Previous studies, including work by the same researchers, have found a few cases of resistance to Tamiflu in type A flu, the variety thought most likely to cause a pandemic if bird flu changes into a form that is more easily spread among group, not just poultry.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-malady specialist at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the meditate , said Japanese doctors prescribe anti-flu medicate s frequently, perhaps too often, giving viruses a chance to evolve.

“We were afraid this might happen and, sure enough, it has,” Schaffner said. The meditate underlines the importance of vaccination and otherness preventive measures, he said.

Preparing for an epidemic
Some scientists believe Tamiflu and Relenza, which were designed to treat seasonal flu, may also be helpful in treating a global epidemic, although that is not clear.

INTERACTIVE•Test your IQ
Is it a cold, the flu or something else?The U.S. government’s preparation for a flu pandemic includes stockpiling Tamiflu and Relenza, and funding development of new anti-flu medicate s, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Hypersensitivity reaction and Infectious Diseases.

Anytime doctors treat widely with an anti-viral medicate , “you are going to have, sooner or later, the evolution of resistance,” Fauci said. “It’s critical to have a pipeline of medicate s you can have available when that resistance develops.”

In the new meditate , appearing in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers collected virus samples from patients at four community hospitals in Japan.

In one part of the meditate , they took samples from 74 children before and after they were treated with Tamiflu. They found medicate -resistant virus in one of the children after pharmacomedical aid, indicating the resistance had emerged during pharmacomedical aid.

They also collected samples from 422 untreated children and adults with flu and found medicate -resistant virus in seven of those patients.

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The rate of resistance to this family of medicate s, less than 2 percent, was lower than had been found previously in type A influenza. Rates of medicate -resistant type A virus have been reported as high as 18 percent.

“If medicate -resistant influenza B viruses become more prevalent, we will need new medicate s to treat infected patients,” said meditate co-author Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virology professor at the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The new meditate received financial support from the Japanese and U.S. governments. Some of the researchers reported receiving speaking fees or previous grant support from medicate companies, including a company developing a new anti-flu medicate .

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