Deadly Antiviral Resistant Flu Appears in China
Chinese researchers reported the first ever clinically documented case of resistance to the antiviral medication Tamiflu in patients infected with the H7N9 bird flu.
Chinese researchers reported the first ever clinically documented case of resistance to the antiviral medication Tamiflu in patients infected with the H7N9 bird flu.
In the case of 14 patients admitted to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center in April, treatment with antiviral medications helped in all but three. Those three developed severe illnesses that required the delivery of oxygen to the circulatory and respiratory systems with a machine, known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Two of the three died. A viral mutation associated with drug resistance was isolated in two of them.
One of the mutations appeared to arise in one of the patients with oxygen support as a result of treatment.
In a report of the cases, the researchers wrote: “The apparent ease with which antiviral resistance emerges … is concerning; it needs to be closely monitored and considered in future pandemic response plans.”
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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… the mutation appeared to be associated with a poor outcome: all of the 11 patients who did not need ECMO had wild-type virus, while two of the three who needed ECMO had the mutation.
One patient, who later died, had wild-type virus in a sample taken 2 days after starting oseltamivir, but had the mutation in samples taken 7 days after starting therapy — apparently as a result of the treatment.
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Ear to the Ground
How the poultry industry complicates preparations for an avian flu pandemic.
Ear to the Ground
Scientists are monitoring mutations in H5N1, a pathogenic avian flu that may be moving in our direction.
Chinese officials have closed poultry markets and ordered a mass slaughter of birds in Shanghai amid an outbreak of a type of avian flu that has not been seen in humans.
University of Tokyo scientist Yoshihiro Kawaoka is making the case for unfettered access to studies in which researchers made a lethal bird flu virus even deadlier by taking it airborne. To those determined to find it, the recipe is already available, he warns, and the mutation could occur outside the laboratory at any moment. All hands to the urgent task of developing a vaccine, then.
Of course, nobody knows for sure how the H1N1 swine flu virus might morph in the future, but the word from the science community suggests that the current strain may not be quite as catastrophic as it's been cracked up to be.
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