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Old flu drugs not effective against seasonal influenza

by Medindia Content Team on Jan 20 2006 4:07 PM

Researcher Tom Jefferson and colleagues from Cochrane Collaboration (International private organization which reports review from compiling data from various clinical trials) reviewed data from over 50 clinical trials involving influenza symptoms and treatment.

The researchers found that the old drugs which were used against influenza were not found to be effective now, some drugs like amantadine and rimantidine which were used to control symptoms and kill influenza was not found to be effective against present flu virus strains and they don’t have any effect against them but only lead to side effects of the drug.

The researchers also said that the new antiflu drugs which were said to be useful against influenza symptoms apart from bird flu infection was also not very useful in treating the influenza disease. The new drugs Tamiflu and Relenza would only be helpful in treating severe pandemic diseases of bird flu in humans and would not have any effective against the seasonal influenza virus infection.

The pharmaceutical manufacturers of Relenza and Tamiflu were not happy with the review results and has said that the results are not very encouraging as they feel in their trial on humans they found both these drugs Relenza and Tamiflu were very effective in controlling seasonal influenza infection besides bird flu infection.

Cochrane Review has done this review from collecting data from research done for the past 40 years in the field of influenza diseases and their symptoms and the review committee has published their review in the Lancet.


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