- Hello, Jeff -- I would like to comment
on this article. First of all, we know that doctors do fail to diagnose
flu in children.
- The article also suggests expanding flu
vaccine for young children age 6 months to 23 months. For children 6 months
they suggest using nasal flu vaccine spray. I completely disagree with
vaccinating young children with flu vaccine. The article also suggests
doctors become accustomed to prescribing antivirals. This is also something
I don't think should happen. If doctors are encouraged to prescribe antivirals
in the same manner that they were once encouraged to prescribe antibiotics,
we will be in serious trouble when a pandemic arises. Flu viruses can
mutate rapidly and develop strains that become resistant to antivirals,
such as tamiflu and amantadine. IF these strains develop what would be
left to fight flu?
-
- --Patricia Doyle
-
- "Dr. W. Paul Glezen of Baylor College
of Medicine in Houston said doctors need to get more accustomed to using
antivirals such as Tamiflu in case there is a flu pandemic one day. He
noted that few children in the study were treated because their flu infection
wasn't detected."
-
-
- Study Shows Doctors Miss Flu
In Children
- By Stephanie Nano
- Associated Press Writer
- 7-6-6
-
- NEW YORK -- Doctors fail to diagnose the flu in the vast majority of young
children, depriving them of medicines that could shorten their illness
and keep them from spreading it to others, a study suggests.
-
- Flu infections were missed in four out
of five preschoolers who were treated for flu symptoms at a doctor's office
or emergency room and in about three-quarters of those who were hospitalized,
researchers report.
-
- "Many of the children did not have
a test performed and few of the children were sent home with a specific
diagnosis of influenza," said Dr. Katherine A. Poehling, of Vanderbilt
University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., who led the government-funded
study.
-
- If more doctors used a rapid flu test,
more cases of flu could be detected and steps taken to prevent its spread,
the researchers suggested. About a third of the children would have been
candidates for medicines like Tamiflu, which work better to ease symptoms
when given early, they said.
-
- Their study is published in Thursday's
New England Journal of Medicine. Two of the researchers report receiving
grant support and consulting fees from spray flu vaccine maker MedImmune
Inc.
-
- Poehling and her research colleagues
in Nashville, Rochester, N.Y., and Cincinnati, are part of a surveillance
network sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
-
- Doctors aren't required to report cases
of the flu, so the researchers set out to determine how many children under
5 actually get the flu. They will eventually use their findings to see
how well flu shots work.
-
- Over four years, the researchers did
their own lab tests on young children who went to the doctor or were hospitalized
with flu-like symptoms such as cough, runny nose and fever. Doctors didn't
have the results but could have done their own test. A rapid test takes
less than 30 minutes.
-
- The study found that most of the children
who had the flu weren't diagnosed with it by their doctors. Only 28 percent
of the hospitalized flu cases and 17 percent of those who went to the doctor
or emergency room were diagnosed with the flu. The rest of the preschoolers
got diagnoses varying from asthma to pneumonia to a general viral illness.
-
- The researchers determined that the annual
hospitalization rate for young children with the flu was about 1 per 1,000,
with most of them under 2 years. But many more children with the flu end
up in doctor's offices and ERs. They calculated there were 56 visits per
1,000 children in a mild flu season and 122 visits in a moderate season.
-
- "The burden is really large and
we don't recognize how much there is," Poehling said.
-
- The study's findings were presented earlier
to a CDC panel which recommended flu shots be expanded this year to children
ages 2 to 5 to reduce doctor and ER visits.
-
- Flu shots were already recommended for
those 6 months to 23 months.
-
- Dr. W. Paul Glezen of Baylor College
of Medicine in Houston said doctors need to get more accustomed to using
antivirals such as Tamiflu in case there is a flu pandemic one day. He
noted that few children in the study were treated because their flu infection
wasn't detected.
-
- "We better start using them now,
then we'll be ready to use them effectively," if there's a pandemic,
said Glezen, who wrote an editorial in the journal. He has received consulting
fees from flu vaccine makers MedImmune, Chiron Corp. and GlaxoSmithKline
PLC.
-
- On the Net:
-
- New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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