Bird Flu May Be Developing Drug Resistance

Pingular writes "The virus currently causing bird flu in humans may be developing resistance to the only drug that can so far combat the infection. From the article: 'A previous paper in the journal Nature described a single case of drug resistance in a patient being treated for avian flu. However, in this case the patient had been given low doses of Tamiflu before becoming infected, as a family member had been stricken. Lead researcher Dr Jeremy Farrar described the latest findings as "very worrying" - but said they were not surprising.'"

Comments

Drug Resistance

[Anonymous Coward]

There are too many instances where people will not finish the prescribed antibiotics and/or then share the remainder with someone who has 'similar' symptoms. Unfortunately, this allows/encourages microbes to alter their structure and become resistant.

After reading the article, it sounds possible in this instance that - because the individual had recently been previously given Tamiflu for a different reason - the virus was given the opportunity to develop resistance. There is also the possibility that the Tamiflu did not work because its mechanism (inhibition of influenza virus neuraminidase, with the possibility of alteration of virus particle aggregation and release) has specific peak/load times based upon exposure or prophylaxis - and again, the individual had already been dosed.

bird flu training itself to resist teraflu?

[drgonzo59]

To most people such claims as "the virus is developing the ability to resist some drug" might sound as if the microorganisms can think and somehow train themselves to defend against drugs.

But what that means is that the virus undergoes mutations at a certain rate. And eventually one of those mutations might lead to resistance to the drug. All the other variants will be destroyed but that very small population which has the resistance will spread very rapidly.

That is why some say that not taking the full dose of antibiotics and using antibiotic soaps in homes can lead to the breeding of super-bacteria. A problem bigger than bird flu at this moment is antibiotic resistant staph bacteria (methicillin-resistant S. aureus aka MRSA). When you hear about people getting sicker just by being in the hospital - they probably caught MRSA. The deadliness and the number of cases from such infections have gone up even though it would make sense for them to go down with all the advances in medicine and hygiene. Some speculate that soon there will be another strain of staph bacteria (VRSA) vancomycin resistant S. aureus which would pretty much be resistant to all the known anti-biotics. All that has to happen is for microorganisms to mutate and spread faster than it takes for us to find new antibiotics.

Re:Tamiflu

[Sad Loser]

oseltamivir (the real name of TamiFlu) is a viral inhibitor which helps protect cells. It does not work like some antibiotics which (often) actually kill the harmful agent. It may reduce the severity of symptoms, but we know that most of the time it doesn't make a lot of difference. The liklihood of it working in H5N1 has probably not been helped by the Chinese spraying their flocks of chicken with these types of drugs, which will tend to select resistant strains.

If there is one lesson you learn from this, it should be this: only vaccination of large numbers of people will prevent significant disease. If your government is telling you that you will be fine because they are stockpiling oseltamivir, the experts in virology/ infectious disease/ emergency planning/ public health suggest otherwise.

The problem is we don't know what the pandemic will be. Current H1N5 'Bird Flu' is only one candidate virus for combination with a 'traditional' influenza virus to make a new mutant strain to which most of the population has no resistance.

[IAAD, am involved with pandemic influenza planning]