TORONTO -- If you鈥檝e ever come down with a case of the flu, you know it can be a nasty virus.
There are medications to treat it, however. Prescription antiviral medications come in pill or liquid form with the most popular being oseltamivir, more commonly known as Tamiflu.
Dr. Sohail Gandhi, the president of the Ontario Medical Association, said these drugs aren鈥檛 typically prescribed to flu patients, however, because they just don鈥檛 work that well for the general population.
鈥淭he antiviral medications, unfortunately they haven鈥檛 shown to be as effective as we鈥檇 like them to be,鈥� he said in a recent phone interview with CTVNews.ca.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e been on the market 15, 18 years and initially it was thought that they would be significantly more beneficial than they were and in time, we鈥檝e discovered that they don鈥檛 actually help in people who are younger, who are healthier, who don鈥檛 have significant health problems.鈥�
, there have been 946 influenza-related hospitalizations and 13 deaths from the flu this season. The data does not include cases from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nunavut, however.
Gandhi did say the medications have proven to be beneficial for people with significant health problems who live in nursing home or long-term medical facilities.
鈥淔or someone who鈥檚 got no other health issues, these antiviral flu medicines, they might at best shorten the flu by six or eight hours,鈥� he said. 鈥淚s the six hours really worth it?鈥�
In 2017, the from a 鈥渃ore鈥� drug to 鈥渃omplementary,鈥� citing that additional testing 鈥渞educed the previously estimated magnitude of effect of oseltamivir on relevant clinical outcomes.鈥� The agency also recommended the drug be restricted to those with severe illness or those critically ill in the hospital.
A recent study published last month in the medical journal The Lancet indicates that antivirals are rarely prescribed in European primary care facilities 鈥渕ostly because of perceived ineffectiveness in real world primary care and because individuals who will especially benefit have not been identified in independent trials.鈥�
That same study, however, prescribed oseltamivir to 1,637 patients in Europe over three flu seasons and found patients recovered an average of one day sooner than those who were not given the medication. Older patients with more severe illnesses recovered two to three days sooner as well.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Toronto, agreed with the recent study and added that he would prescribe oseltamivir to nearly any patient who comes to him with a case of the flu.
鈥淭hey work very well and not to be blasé about it, but I hand these drugs out like Halloween candy,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 just a lot of flu and we give these drugs out liberally.鈥�
Bogoch added there is a concern that the virus will become resistant to antiviral medications if they are routinely prescribed to patients, but said such resistance is rare.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, this year鈥檚 flu strains have proven sensitive to oseltamivir and another antiviral medication known as zanamivir. The strains have been resistant to a third medication, amantadine, however.
