Twenty years ago, the Food and Drug Administration of the United States did not approve a drug to keep out the common cold or flu. That just changed, with a pill that promises to be 20 times faster and stronger than the popular Tamiflu.
For the first time in 20 years, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new drug against influenza: Xofluza. The drug has a mechanism of action different from Tamiflu, and only requires a single dose of the drug, this was reported in a press release.
First, we must clarify that what in Colombia we normally call “flu” is actually a common cold, easily manageable and with few risks of complications. Influenza, on the other hand, is a type of virus, influenza, which according to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), kills up to 650,000 people each year during seasonal flu epidemics around the world.
The flu, produced by viruses that mutate their DNA quickly, so far, it has been impossible to create a definitive treatment. To date, the best way to protect against infections is annual vaccination.
For this reason, the flu returns every year and in the elderly, people with chronic diseases of internal organs, pregnant women and young children can lead to serious complications and even death.
Although there is no effective and rapid treatment for the flu, recovery can be accelerated by taking specific antiviral medications. To date, there are two groups of drugs: the inhibitors of the superficial proteins of neuraminidase and the group of M2. Both types of medications prevent the virus from interacting with cells. However, all modern strains have already become resistant to the remedies of the second group, leaving them completely obsolete.
Taking inhibitors of the neuraminidase protein, such as Tamiflu, still makes sense, but it should be done within the first 48 hours of infection. Taking Tamiflu can shorten the duration of the disease by approximately 24 hours, but the course of treatment is several days.
For its part, Xofluza belongs to another class of inhibitors, which does not slow down the interaction of the virus with the cells, but rather inhibits the endonuclease, which blocks viral replication. That is to say: the new medicine acts before the virus is already watered throughout the body, and rather prevents the virus from multiplying .
To achieve a therapeutic effect, the medication must also be taken during the first symptoms of the infection, no later than 48 hours after the onset of the disease.
As in the case of Tamiflu, timely initiation of treatment will reduce the duration of the disease by an average of 33 hours. Although its effectiveness is not much higher than that of Tamiflu, Scott Gottlieb, the FDA commissioner, said in a statement that “it is important to have treatments that work in different ways, because the rump viruses can become resistant to antivirals. ”
However, if there is a difference between the new drug and other previously developed drugs, it should be taken only once. The developers of the drug, the company Roche, hope that the dosage makes the drug more popular than Tamiflu. Its cost, at least in the United States, will be $150 per dose.
