The Bird Flu
Bird Flu Treatment
Over the last decade, bird flu has become a major medical concern, on a global scale, although its effects haven't yet been extremely destructive towards the human population. The risk of a pandemic outburst (one that is estimated to have a death toll of several million lives) is still out there, for which reason international health institutions and governments have been urged to find a treatment for the bird flu as quickly as possible. Some important advances have been made in this regard, however there are still a lot of unanswered questions and problems that are quite worrying.
The main reason of concern is the fact that the bird flu virus is constantly and quickly mutating into improved versions of itself, making it almost impossible to create an effective vaccine. The same scenario applies to bird flu treatment, as with the prevention vaccine: several drugs that were effective in treating the first versions of the virus are now completely ineffective. These are not worth going into detail, but we'll focus on the drugs that DO work and have proved to be effective with nearly all bird flu viruses, especially the most powerful one: H5N1.
Oseltamivir (branded as Tamiflu) and zanamivir (branded as Relenza) are two such drugs that offer a good chance of surviving the bird flu, if administered early on, within the first 2 days of the disease. Even after this relative deadline, chances are that the drugs will increase your chance of surviving the flu, but if the virus already entered its more advanced stages (such as triggering the acute respiratory syndrome and pneumonia) they might simply not be enough to get past the disease.
A problem with these drugs is that they are quite hard to mass produce, so in case of a bird flu pandemic, it's estimated that it will take approximately 10 years to cover 20% of the global population with them, by which time the disease would have disastrous effects. That's why zanamivir and oseltamivir are only considered temporary solutions to the bird flu problem until a more efficient way of dealing with the disease is found.
It should also be noted that the bird flu pneumonias are different than the usual ones, which can be treated with antibiotics. H5N1 pneumonias are highly resistant to antibiotics, but a continued treatment with such drugs is still recommended during the disease. The reason for this is that the pneumonias often trigger other infections to the lungs, which CAN be treated with antibiotics. But these infections are secondary and treatment should obviously focus on curing the main effects of the H5N1 virus.
To conclude, it's very important to understand that the flu's treatment depends heavily on the evolution of the different viruses contained by it. Even the above-mentioned drugs, that are effective with today's virus versions might prove ineffective in the future, as the viruses develop new resistances. Since the situation is relatively stable at the moment, in what regards the outburst of a bird flu pandemic, scientists will try to find a way to prevent the disease and stop it from spreading rather than getting ready to treat it in the case of a global epidemic.