OTTAWA - The antiviral drug Tamiflu can now be prescribed to babies to prevent or treat early symptoms of swine flu.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq signed an interim order this week allowing doctors to prescribe the drug to children under one year of age.
Before she signed the order, Canada hadn't approved any antiviral medications for babies.
"The public-health emergency created by the pandemic, and this group's increased vulnerability from influenza, created the urgent circumstances that deemed this necessary," Aglukkaq said.
The Public Health Agency of Canada says the strain of the H1N1 virus circulating the globe poses a high risk to babies.
Canadian epidemiological data shows babies are hospitalized, admitted to intensive-care units and die at higher rates than others infected with the H1N1 virus, said the country's chief public health officer.
"We know, however, that this group is increasingly vulnerable to complications of H1N1," Dr. David Butler-Jones said.
"Healthy children under 24 months, and children with certain chronic health conditions, are at increased risk of influenza-related complications and hospitalization from influenza."
The Public Health Agency acknowledged there's limited data on the use of Tamiflu in children of that age. But the agency also says there's an urgent need for recommendations to treat them since they run a higher risk of dying from the flu.
Canada follows the United States and the United Kingdom in allowing Tamiflu to be prescribed to very young children.
"It really reflects a very practical concern that when you have a very sick child under one, you want to be able to treat them," Butler-Jones said.
"Physicians are looking for some practical guidance of how you can actually do that so it's not just off-label use based on best guess or 'we think this is better."'
The drug, along with another antiviral medication called Relenza, is being used to treat people with the strain of the H1N1 virus.
Butler-Jones couldn't say whether Relenza would also be approved for babies.
Antivirals can treat flu symptoms and reduce the spread of the illness to others if they are administered early.
However, use of Tamiflu to prevent infection - a procedure called prophylaxis - has been seen on occasion to give rise to resistant viruses.
This week Canada recorded its first case of Tamiflu-resistant swine-flu virus in a Quebec man who had been given the drug to prevent infection.
The man recovered from his bout of swine flu without complications and didn't need to go to the hospital.
