Beyond Tamiflu: After Decades With Just One Main Drug To Fight Virus, More May Be On The Horizon
“For several decades now, we have not sought to develop the tools we need to fight the flu,” said Olga Jonas, a senior fellow at the Harvard Global Health Institute. “The tax we pay for this folly is as inexorable as it is enormous.” Pharmaceutical companies stand to make quite a fortune off of any medicine they develop to treat the flu.
Bloomberg:
New Drugs Are Coming To Fight Nasty Flu Seasons
Flu has been on a vicious march this winter, evading vaccines, overwhelming hospitals and prompting school closures from California to Hong Kong in its wake. But relief in the form of new drugs is on the way. Almost two decades after Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu first reached pharmacy shelves, researchers around the world are pushing ahead with a raft of new options. None will arrive in time to help sufferers this winter, but the most advanced -- developed by Roche and Shionogi & Co. -- could be on the market in Japan within months and available in the U.S. and Europe next winter. (Gale, 2/8)
In other flu news —
Sacramento Bee:
Use These Apps To See ZIP Codes Where Flu Is Raging In Sacramento Area
Mobile apps and websites allow people to track common illnesses, including influenza, right down to the ZIP code – and sometimes even street – where the sickness was reported. In the case of DoctorsReport.com, founder Dan Shaw said he culls information from physicians. (Anderson, 2/8)
