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Ed Yeates ReportingDr. Bryon Murray: "They're finding it as high as 90-percent of the isolates were resistant to that, and that got people's attention."
One strain of the flu bug is fighting back against some drugs that were once effective in knocking it down. Just like the overuse of antibiotics produces drug resistant bacteria, now the overuse of two anti-viral drugs has spawned a drug resistant influenza "A" strain.
First it was the Centers for Disease Control. Now, the American Medical Association. A follow-up study today is warning doctors worldwide to stop using two anti-viral drugs for influenza.
While high level labs, like the one at Utah State University, continue testing new compounds to see which ones attack flu viruses, strains of influenza "A" are already developing a resistance to two widely used drugs. Last month the CDC asked doctors to stop using Amantadine and Rimantadine for the remainder of this flu season. Today, researchers reporting in the Journal of the American Medical Association say the influenza "A" resistance is much more widespread than expected, saying...
"The response must be global and immediate. If successful, there is some evidence that the prevalence of resistance not only might stabilize, but actually decrease."
At Brigham Young University, viral researcher Dr. Byron Murray says because people have been so worried about the bird flu, they've been overusing and abusing two of the four anti-viral drugs. Unlike the flu shot, Amantadine and Rimantadine are supposed to be given via prescription after a patient reports symptoms of the flu.
These anti-virals are designed not to prevent sickness, but reduce the severity of illness after you get it, but that's not how many have been using the drugs.
Dr. Byron Murray, Brigham Young University Viral Research: "What the CDC, JAMA and others in the medical community are so worried about is this widespread prophylactic use of this where there's no indication, or no clinical sign of infection at all."
Since the strain causing one form of bird flu right now is mutating and changing, physicians don't want to see early resistance in any influenza virus to the very drugs which may prove useful in reducing the severity of illness should we face a pandemic.
The AMA study doesn't mix words: "This should serve as a warning to the medical community of the speed at which resistant influenza viruses can become predominant, circulating strains and spread throughout a continent."
Just like overuse or abuse of antibiotics produced drug resistant strains of bacteria, so go the viruses. If people are stockpiling and using prescribed anti-viral medications as a preventive when that's not what they're intended for, they're being misused.
