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Bird Flu- Treatment with Tamiflu
Recent outbreak of bird flu and its subsequent effect on humans have drawn media attention for the last three years...

Date : Mayl 05, 2006

Recent outbreak of bird flu and its subsequent effect on humans have drawn media attention for the last three years. Actually millions of domestic birds like chickens had to be culled or to be quarantined to check spread of the bird flu virus. People have become scared and frantically stockpiling the Oseltamivir Phospahate, which is the medical name of Tamiflu to fight against the infection.

So far, Oseltamivir Phospahate has been proved to be the most effective medicine for treatment and prevention of the infection of avian influenza virus in humans.

Another medicine called relenza also is effective in similar way in treatment of infection due to avian influenza in humans. But the medicine is produced in small quantities and is not adequately available to tackle community outbreak of the disease.

Today our discussions will be related to the infection of bird flu viruses to humans and their effective treatment.

Let us see the problem from the background.

Flu or influenza is a common disease related to respiratory problems and affects most of the people during season change or due to bad environment. The disease is caused by flu or influenza viruses which quickly spread from one person to the other.

The influenza virus causes fever, chill aches and pain and also cough and sore throat to the person infected with influenza viruses. Some times the virus attack becomes severe. The attack may result in life threatening Pneumonia. Also secondary bacterial infection is not uncommon which may cause more diseases.

Influenza is caused due to infection by two different kinds of Viruses- Type A and Type B. Both the viruses cause respiratory illness to the infected persons. The disease is highly contagious and spare little numbers of persons in the community if it out breaks there.

There are a number of suitable medicines for Type A and / or Type B influenza viruses. They are Amantadine, Rimantadine, Relenza and Tamiflu.

Now we come to the case of Bird flu.

As it happens to human, flu virus can infect the birds as well. When birds are infected by flu virus we call it as bird flu or avian influenza.

Bird flu virus is spread by migratory birds. The disease is spread to the domestic birds when the flue virus infects the domestic birds which may come into the contact with the flu virus spread from the migratory birds through their droppings. However, there may be other means by which the disease may spread.

The disease is quickly spread to the neighboring birds and the whole lot is affected by the virus in no time. Unless the infected birds are culled and the healthy birds are quarantined, there is no respite from the spreading of the bird flu disease.

However this is not the only reason for the recent media attention to the Bird flu disease.

The disease is spread to the humans who come into the close contacts of the infected chickens. The bird flu virus is suspected to mutate to take deadly form which becomes fatal to the person attacked by the bird flu virus. In fact several human deaths have occurred in the far eastern countries like Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam during the period 2003 and 2005 and thus the recent media hype to the disease.

Symptoms like fever, sore throat and cough to severe respiratory illness developed when a person is infected by avian influenza virus.

If neglected at the initial phases of infection, the disease may take fatal turn causing multiple organ failure leading the person to death.

Common flu treatment medicines like amantadine and rimantadine may not be suitable for avian flu virus infection.

Tamiflu (Oseltamivir Phosphate) developed by Roche is normally used for treatment against both Type A and Type B Influenza virus infections.

The anti viral medicine Tamiflu, taken orally as per the advice of a doctor, attacks the influenza virus and stops it spreading inside the body. With higher than normal dosage the medicine has proved to be the most effective medicine against the infection of avian flu virus in humans.

The medicine helps in both ways. That means Tamiflu can be taken for treatment of the virus infection, and a healthy man can take this with reduced dosage for prevention from the infection as well if the disease outbreaks in the community.

There are some side effects of the medicine which should be reported to the doctor recommending Tamiflu against avian flu virus infection.

We have given a brief outlines of the disease and its treatment. For details Roche's bulletins regarding Tamiflu should be consulted.

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