Excessive use may make bird flu drug useless Washington, Jan 8
(IANS) Overuse of cheap and popular drugs like Tamiflu may make
the avian flu virus resistant to it. Scientists in the US have
warned against their use after their failure to stop the flu
virus in Asia. The scientists say that excessive antiviral drug
can accelerate drug resistance in viruses, and that resistance
can spread rapidly. The results should serve as a warning to
those who consider Tamiflu the great antiviral medication,
researchers warned. Researchers analysed almost 700 genome
sequences of avian influenza strains to document where and when
the virus developed resistance to a class of antiviral drugs
called adamantanes and how far the resistance spread. In order
to prepare for a long-feared pandemic flu outbreak, especially
in the event that avian flu mutates enough to infect and be
easily transmitted among humans, Tamiflu has become a standard
to avoid it. 'We can't necessarily say what we've seen in
adamantanes is predictive of what w