Fergie's Tech Blog

H5N1 News: Bird Flu Victims Died Due to Tamiflu Resistance

An AP newswire article, via MSNBC, reports that:

In a development health experts are calling alarming, two bird flu patients in Vietnam died after developing resistance to Tamiflu, the key drug that governments are stockpiling in case of a large-scale outbreak.

The experts said the deaths were disturbing because the two girls had received early and aggressive treatment with Tamiflu and had gotten the recommended doses.

The new report suggests that the doses doctors now consider ideal may be too little. Previous reports of resistance involved people who had taken the drug in low doses; inadequate doses of medicine are known to promote resistance by allowing viruses or bacteria to mutate and make a resurgence.

posted by Fergie @ 12/21/2005 04:22:00 PM