Current Drug Is No Match For New Strain of Flu

New York - Getting the flu can be at a minimum, miserable, and at its’ worst - deadly. For this reason, Americans have been urged for years to get annual flu shots during the flu season. But recently, as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the antiviral drug Tamiflu is no match for the flu virus.

More accurately, Tamiflu is of little use combating the most recent strain of flu viruses that have been widely reported this season across the U.S.

Medical personnel are reporting that most of their patients are not escaping the majority of flu symptoms because the latest strain seems to have grown resistant to the current drugs in place. That’s a major concern for health officials, who are now recommending flu shots for children 6 mos. to 18 years old.

H1N1 subtype of influenza A viruses is the strain that is proving resistant to the popular drug oseltamivir (sold in the U.S. as Tamiflu).

Tamiflu is produced by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, and is the main antiviral remedy on the market today. Tamiflu-resistant flu viruses accounted for 1 in 5 of all reported U.S. cases during the 2007-2008 flu season.

That’s concerning enough for top researchers to remind the medical community and drug developers that they can never become complacent in their research, as one thing seems for certain - the flu virus will continue to evolve.