Study Of Flu Patients Reveals Virus Outsmarting Key Drug

A drug envisioned as a front-line defense for the next flu pandemic might have a genetic Achilles' heel that results in a drug-resistant influenza virus capable of infecting new human hosts, according to a study published this week (Aug. 28) in the British medical journal The Lancet. The study of Japanese children with influenza and treated with the antiviral drug oseltamivir was conducted by an international team of researchers led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Tokyo. Results of the study showed that nearly 20 percent of patients treated with the drug produced mutant drug-resistant viruses as soon as four days after treatment. Moreover, patients continued to shed significant amounts of infectious viral particles even after five days of treatment with the potent antiviral agent.