Canadian pharmacy news
Tamiflu is most effective treatment for swine flu Antiviral Drugs and Swine Influenza Antiviral Drugs Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines (pills, liquid or an inhaler) with activity against influenza viruses, including swine influenza viruses. Antiviral drugs can be used to treat swine flu or to prevent infection with swine flu viruses. These medications must be prescribed by a health care professional. Influenza antiviral drugs only work against influenza viruses -- they will not help treat or prevent symptoms caused by infection from other viruses that can cause symptoms similar to the flu. There are four influenza antiviral drugs approved for use in the United States (oseltamivir, zanamivir, amantadine and rimantadine). The swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses that have been detected in humans in the United States and Mexico are resistant to amantadine and rimantadine so these drugs will not work against these swine influenza viruses. Laboratory testing on these swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses so far indicate that they are susceptible (sensitive) to oseltamivir and zanamivir. Benefits of Antiviral Drugs Treatment: If you get sick, antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious influenza complications. For treatment, antiviral drugs work best if started as soon after getting sick as possible, and might not work if started more than 48 hours after illness starts. Prevention: Influenza antiviral drugs also can be used to prevent influenza when they are given to a person who is not ill, but who has been or may be near a person with swine influenza. When used to prevent the flu, antiviral drugs are about 70% to 90% effective. When used for prevention, the number of days that they should be used will vary depending on a person'ls particular situation. CDC Recommendation CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with swine influenza viruses. · Oseltamivir (brand name Tamiflu®) is approved to both treat and prevent influenza A and B virus infection in people one year of age and older. · Zanamivir (brand name Relenza®) is approved to treat influenza A and B virus infection in people 7 years and older and to prevent influenza A and B virus infection in people 5 years and older. Recommendations for using antiviral drugs for treatment or prevention of swine influenza will change as we learn more about this new virus. Clinicians should consider treating any person with confirmed or suspected swine influenza with an antiviral drug. Visit: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/recommendations.htmfor specific recommendations. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Flu in 9 countries as Germany, Austria confirm cases
Apr. 29--WASHINGTON -- Tamiflu, an antiviral prescription medication in pill form, so far is the most effective treatment for combating the new swine flu and for protecting health care workers who may be exposed to it.
The drug is made and marketed by Roche Holding AG of Switzerland but was developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. of California in 1996.
Demand for the drug rose quickly with the threat of a deadly bird strain of flu that emerged in 2004, and all 50 states and dozens of countries now have enough strategic stockpiles of the drug for 220 million people. The drug has a seven-year shelf life.
Roche said Tuesday that it could ramp up production to 400 million courses a year.
More orders are on the way. The Obama administration said it would seek $1.5 billion from Congress to combat the threat of a swine flu pandemic and is in talks with Roche about increasing production.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said at least $122 million of that should be used to buy more antiviral drugs. The federal government has a stockpile of 50 million courses of Tamiflu, while states have separate stockpiles of 23 million. Some of the federal stockpile was released to Texas and other affected states Sunday, and federal officials said Tuesday all 50 states will be receiving supplies by Sunday.
Public health workers are seeking $563 million for antiviral drugs, masks and special respirators to protect themselves while treating infected patients. The drug has proven effective in warding off the disease if medical workers take the full, five-day treatment course.
"We don'lt want the ordinary you or me to go out and start taking Tamiflu. But if you got sick with a 101-degree temperature, and it'ls within 48 hours of the onset of illness, you'ld be a good candidate to receive it, once you'lve had a spot check for flu," said Dr. James Luby, an infectious disease specialist at the UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
"A relative sick with diabetes living in the house would also be a good candidate to receive it," Luby said.
Relenza, a drug made by GlaxoSmithKline that works with an inhaler, is also effective against the strain of swine flu now appearing around the world if taken early enough.
What works this time may not work in the future, however. Many American flu sufferers were unable to get relief from Tamiflu and Relenza during the current flu season because of resistance to the drugs among some virus strains.
The flu sweeping Mexico and now appearing in several other countries is a strain never seen before by virus hunters. It is a mix of genetic material from humans, birds and pigs.
Federal scientists have already isolated "seed" samples of the virus and shipped them to vaccine manufacturers, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of allergy and infectious disease at the National Institutes of Health.
But a decision on whether to order a vaccine hasn'lt been made yet. Rear Adm. Anne Schuchat, acting interim deputy director of the public health program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a Senate hearing Tuesday that her agency was considering whether to develop a vaccine for just this strain of flu or a combination of flu viruses.
In 1976, a vaccine quickly developed to counteract what federal officials feared could be a pandemic swine flu was tied to multiple cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing illness.
"We are trying to learn the lessons of 1976 so that we learn and do as well as we can," she said.
Roche has made 5 million courses of Tamiflu available to the World Health Organization and has licensed other manufacturers to make the drug. Earlier this month, Gilead was denied patent protection for Tamiflu (formally known as oseltamivir) by India'ls Patent Protection Office, and Indian pharmaceutical maker Cipla Ltd. has moved its own version of the drug into production.
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/antiviral_swine.htm
WHO may raise pandemic alert
BY MAGGIE FOX, REUTERSAPRIL 29, 2009 8:36 AM
WASHINGTON - A baby in Texas has died of the H1N1 flu strain, the first confirmed death outside Mexico from a virus which health officials fear could cause a pandemic as it spread to two more countries in Europe.
Nearly a week after the threat emerged in Mexico, where up to 159 people have died, a U.S. official said on Wednesday a 23-month-old had died in the state bordering Mexico. A health official said the baby was Mexican and was in the United States for medical treatment.
Richard Besser, acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he expected more bad news even though most of the 65 U.S. cases of swine flu were mild.
"We'lre going to find more cases. We'lre going to find more severe cases and I expect that we'lll continue to see additional deaths," he said.
President Barack Obama said the death showed it was time to take "utmost precautions" against the possible spread of the virus.
Germany reported its first three infections and Austria one, taking to nine the number of countries known to be affected.
"We have about 100 cases outside Mexico, and now you have one death. That is very significant," said Lo Wing Lok, an infectious disease expert in Hong Kong.
France said it would seek on Thursday a European Union ban on flights to Mexico because of the influenza outbreak. Argentina and Cuba have already banned them.
The EU, the United States and Canada have advised against non-essential travel to the popular tourist destination.
Like the baby in the United States, all seven new cases in Europe had recently been in Mexico.
They comprised a Bavarian couple in their 30s, a 22-year-old woman from Hamburg, a 28-year-old Austrian, who was now recovering, and three Britons with mild symptoms — adults in London and Birmingham and a girl aged 12 in southwest England.
Cases have been confirmed in Canada, New Zealand, Israel and Spain.
The World Health Organization said it might raise its pandemic alert level to phase five — the second highest — if it were confirmed that infected people in at least two countries were spreading the disease to other people in a sustained way.
Before the U.S. death was reported, Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director for health security and environment, said it could be a "very mild pandemic", adding, however, that influenza "moves in ways we cannot predict".
H1N1 swine flu poses the biggest risk of a large-scale pandemic since avian flu re-emerged in 2003, killing 257 people of 421 infected in 15 countries. In 1968 a "Hong Kong" flu pandemic killed about 1 million people globally, with twice that number dying a decade earlier. Stock markets in Asia and Europe rose on Wednesday, partly on optimism the world could be spared a deadly pandemic. However, considerable market uncertainty remained.
The new strain contains DNA from avian, swine and human viruses and appears to have evolved the ability to pass easily from one person to another, unlike most swine H1N1 viruses. It cannot be caught from eating pig meat products but Egypt ordered all its pigs to be slaughtered and some countries, led by Russia and China, have banned U.S. pork imports. The World Trade Organization said on Wednesday it had not been told officially of any such bans, and the EU and Japan said they would not follow suit.
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said more than 1,300 people were in hospitals, some of them seriously ill, out of a total of about 2,500 suspected cases.
"In the last few days there has been a decline (in cases)," he said. "The death figures have remained more or less stable."
Victims included young adults, a different pattern from common seasonal flu that mainly kills the elderly and infirm. It kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in a normal year, including healthy children in rich countries.
Health agencies advise frequent hand washing and covering sneezes and coughs to help stop the spread. Experts generally agree that face masks, especially the surgical masks seen on the streets of Mexico City, offer little protection.
The outbreak has deeply affected life in Mexico and ravaged tourism, a key earner.
Mexico City was unusually quiet, with schools closed. Many parents took their children in to work.
All Mayan ruins and Aztec pyramids, dotted through central and southern Mexico, were closed until further notice.
Cruise firms Carnival and Royal Caribbean said they were temporarily suspending port calls in the country and land-based tour groups were calling off trips.
In a sign of how mild many cases outside Mexico have been, New Zealand gave the all-clear for a group of students and a teacher who caught the virus.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said pork, soybean and corn prices had fallen in the past two days and criticized what he said were illogical trade restrictions on pork.
"We want to make sure that a handful of our trading partners don'lt take advantage of this legitimate concern over public health and engage in behaviour that could also damage the world'ls economy," said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.