Antivirals Protect Children with Flu despite Complications

It's flu season and a new study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, has found that prompt use of antiviral medications like Tamiflu or Relenza can save the lives of flu-stricken children in intensive care units - yet the drugs are being used less frequently than they once were.

Janice K. Louie, M.D., M.P.H., of the California Department of Public Health in Richmond, and colleagues analyzed data from 784 patients, aged 0 to 17 years, hospitalized in intensive care units with laboratory-confirmed influenza from April 2009 through September 2012. The authors sought to assess the effects of NAI treatment on survival.

"Antivirals matter and they decrease mortality, and the sooner you give them the more effectively they do that," said Dr. Peggy Weintrub, the chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the research. "We didn't have nice proof on a large scale until this study."

The H1N1 flu pandemic broke out in 2009 and the CDC has recommended prompt treatment with antiviral drugs for all hospitalized patients with suspected or confirmed influenza. The directive includes children, especially those who have conditions like asthma, diabetes or heart disease that heighten their risk of severe influenza.

"Antiviral use has decreased since the pandemic," said Dr. Janice K. Louie, the lead author of the study and a public health medical officer at the California Department of Public Health. "One of the goals of the study was to increase awareness and remind clinicians that antiviral use is important in this population."

There is wide agreement that the message has not been getting through.

"When the pandemic occurred, there was a lot of publicity, and physicians were being hit over the head with, 'This is a severe disease; you need to be on top of it,'" said Dr. John Treanor, the chief of infectious diseases at University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. Now, he added, "people aren't talking about it."