# 2257
Robert Roos at CIDRAP (Center For Infectious Disease Research & Policy) news has a good overview of the recent reports of growing oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistance in H1N1 seasonal influenza samples worldwide.
This is an ongoing story that I've covered here, here, and here.
As usual, CIDRAP provides more background information than most news reports. I've just included a snippet, follow the link to read the entire article.
H1N1 flu viruses growing more resistant to Tamiflu
Robert Roos
News Editor
Aug 25, 2008 (CIDRAP News) – With influenza season well under way in the southern hemisphere, one of the three kinds of seasonal influenza virus is becoming increasingly resistant to the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the World Health Organization (WHO) reported last week.
Thirty-one percent (242 of 788) of influenza A/H1N1 isolates from 16 countries that were tested in recent months carried a mutation associated with oseltamivir resistance, the WHO said. In South Africa, all of the 107 isolates tested had this mutation, known as H274Y, the agency reported.
Other countries and areas that tested 10 or more isolates and found resistance included Australia, 100% (10 of 10 isolates); Ghana, 20% (2 of 10) Hong Kong, 17% (97 of 583); and Chile, 13% (4 of 32 isolates).
The findings strengthen a trend that that was first observed last January in Norway and subsequently in many other countries. Overall for the last quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of this year, 16% (1,182 of 7,528) of tested H1N1 isolates carried the resistance mutation, according to WHO figures. Resistance was found in 35 countries, mostly in the northern hemisphere, including in 12% of tested US isolates and 26% of tested Canadian isolates.
"What we're seeing is the evolution of the resistance gene and the distribution of it throughout the world," said Lance Jennings, a clinical virologist with the Canterbury District Health Board in Christchurch, New Zealand, and chair of the Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee on Influenza, as quoted in an Aug 22 Bloomberg News report.
