Popular Drug Non Resistant to the Flu

Seattle – Every year there is always a new strain of the influenza virus that is a common threat which many people have to deal with. This year the Influenza A virus that has been circulating around is resistant to the popular drug Tamiflu. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association 98% of the virus is resistant to the drug. This makes treating the disease to be considerably more difficult. As Dr. John M. Cmar, an infectious disease specialist at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore commented, “Since late January or early February, we have definitely been seeing more cases, not only of people who are getting a formal diagnosis of flu, but who are coming in with influenza-like illnesses.”

To make matters worse another drug resistant flu virus is attacking patients just like the other strain with the same type of symptoms making it more difficult to diagnose. At this point the only thing that can be done is to educate doctors and focus on prevention as Dr. Nila J. Dharan, who is the epidemic intelligence officer at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said, “The message for physicians is to do the best they can to stay abreast of their local and state surveillance data, to know which viruses are circulating.”

What this shows is that many viruses that were once resistant to many common drugs are now becoming useless as they mutate into a more potent strains. In the case of the Influenza A virus the only thing that anyone can do is wait and see what happens.

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