There are hardly any medications available to treat the flu. Among these, Tamiflu is the only medicine that is good for treating the flu. Here I will cover some of the symptoms of the flu. This will tell you when you should take Tamiflu and what other medicines are available for the flu.
Flu symptoms
Flu symptoms are sore throat. This is the beginning of the chapter called flu. This can be the common flu or the onset of bird flu. But the sore throat will worsen to a condition where you will know that this is not just a sore throat but something worse than that. He is stoned in the second chapter with a high fever that reaches temperatures over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. And along with this, as a subsection of the second chapter of the flu, you will have muscle aches, weakness, loss of appetite and chest pain.
Introduction of Flushot
That was the way things were when the Spanish flu hit in the 1918s. It brought a number of people with it. The estimated loss of life was about 20 million worldwide. The flu vaccine was introduced. This is a regular flu shot. People lost their lives not only from the flu. The flu turned into pneumonia, and pneumonia turned into a bacterial infection. It wreaked havoc, and the result was what we faced in the 1918s. But a vaccine when the flu is with you won’t have much of an effect. It had to be taken long before the flu hits you. The tablets available at that time were amantadine and rimantdine. Both drugs had to be consumed as tablets. These drugs work like this. They could prevent the flu virus from replicating after it has been inside human cells. They couldn’t mutate and form a group with which they could attack the body. But there were limitations to the drugs amantadine and rimantdine. They were effective only against the viruses that cause type ‘A’ influenza. They were ineffective against the type “B” influenza virus. For this, an alternative medicine had to be conjured.
New drugs: Tamiflu and Relenza
It was at the beginning of this century that new drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza were formulated. They were effective against the viruses that cause influenza type “A” and type “B”. They belonged to a separate class of drugs called neuraminidase inhibitors. Tamiflu contained the drug Oseltamivir and Relenza was made from Zanamivir. Both drugs worked in a similar way. They could also prevent virus particles from being released into human cells. This limited the spread of the infection.
The medicine Tamiflu is taken in pill form. It comes in capsule form, a yellowish-gray capsule with seventy-five milligrams of the drug contained in it. There is also another form in which Tamiflu is supplied, it is the suspension form. This suspension form is for children. They are given medication according to their weight. For a child who weighs less than 33 pounds, thirty milligrams of the medication is given. In all weight categories, the drug is administered in the proper proportions.
Relenza is a drug that requires an inhaler to take the drug. This medication is inhaled directly into the lungs. This medication was approved by the FDA around the same time that Tamiflu was approved. However, people suffering from asthma and other related respiratory diseases faced deaths after inhaling this drug. Experts in the field have weighed the options against the risk involved in taking this prescription inhalation medication. They have justified the risk involved against the risk of infection.
Tamiflu has been considered too expensive compared to older drugs.