Tamiflu (oseltamivir), an antiviral drug used between 2009 and 2010 to fight H1N1 influenza has reduced the number of deaths in patients affected by the disease by 25%, according to the results of a meta-analysis funded by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche which produces this treatment. This research was published in the trade journal The Lancet Respiratory.
British researchers at the University of Nottingham analyzed the medical data of 29,000 patients hospitalized between January 2, 2009 and March 14, 2011 who may be infected with the influenza A (H1N1) virus.
Tamiflu reduces risk of death by 25%
In the case of the common flu, Tamiflu should be taken within 48 hours and can reduce the duration of symptoms by 24 hours. They found that Tamiflu reduced the risk of death in hospitalized adults by 25%. “Tamiflu was shown to be even more effective, with a 50% risk of death reduced, when given within two days of onset of flu symptoms. On the other hand, beyond two days, each day of delay in the implementation of the treatment increased the risk of death by 20%, ”explains Professor Nguyen-Van-Tam, the study coordinator.
But, the researchers also noted that “while the benefit of Tamiflu on survival was about 25% in all adults, including pregnant women and patients placed in intensive care for severe symptoms, compared to untreated patients, no notable reduction in mortality was observed in children under 16 years of age. “
In 2009, the French government spent billions of euros to procure stocks of Tamiflu during the influenza A epidemic. Yet the World Health Organization (WHO) has been blamed for fueling fear. of an H1N1 flu epidemic that never happened. The Roche laboratory has also been accused by the British Medical Journal of hiding unfavorable study results on the effectiveness of Tamiflu. Researchers from the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen, an independent health research and information center wrote in this publication that “for at least 15 Roche clinical studies on Tamiflu, the European Medicines Agency has not whole report. “
