A swine flu H1N1 virus infecting a woman patient in Singapore changed into a drug-resistant type virtually overnight, doctors reported in a study that they say shows the limitations of using drugs to treat influenza.
While the woman recovered, the mutation developed within 48 hours, making the infection increasingly resistant to the effects of Tamiflu, the main drug used to fight flu and which is known generically as oseltamivir.
“Our data indicate that oseltamivir resistance developed within two days,” Masafumi Inoue of the Agency for Science, Research and Technology in Singapore and colleagues wrote in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal.