During the 2009 swine flu pandemic the United States of America spent more than $1.3 billion dollars stockpiling Tamiflu. (Credit: Alcibiades, Wikimedia Commons)
Governments across the world stock-pile flu vaccines and antiviral drugs like Tamiflu (oeltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir). While vaccines can prevent flu virus, the antiviral drugs are only designed to fight an infection that’s already underway.
A new review of 46 clinical trials studies by The Cochrane Collaboration and the British Medical Journal shows that while both antiviral drugs shorten the duration of flu-like symptoms by about half a day. However they do not affect the number of hospitalizations, nor is there evidence that the drugs prevent person-to-person spread of the influenza virus.
The authors now ask government and health policy decision makers if they would choose to stockpile Tamiflu in light of these findings.
Original research paper published in the journal The Cochrane Library on April 9, 2014.
Names and affiliations of selected authors
