U.S. campers developed drug-resistant flu

Maggie Fox
Reuters
September 11, 2009

[efoods]Two girls given antiviral drugs in an effort to protect children at a summer camp from the new pandemic swine flu developed resistant virus, U.S. health officials reported on Thursday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the study supports its new recommendations that flu drugs not be given to prevent infection among people who are otherwise healthy.

Both girls recovered without becoming seriously ill, but the incident shows that it is easy for the new pandemic H1N1 virus to develop resistance to flu drugs, officials said.

“We are concerned about the appropriate use of antivirals,” the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat said in an interview.

Two antiviral drugs work well against H1N1 swine flu — Roche AG and Gilead Science Inc’s Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, and GlaxoSmithKline and Biota’s Relenza, known generically as zanamivir.

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This article was posted: Friday, September 11, 2009 at 12:15 pm

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