Treating influenza (flu)

Information for People at High Risk for Flu ComplicationFor more information, visit: www.cdc.gov/flu or call 1-800-CDC-INFOCS HCVG-15-FLU-101 September 11, 2020treating-influenza.pdfDo you have asthma, diabetes or chronic heart disease? -- Why am I at greater risk of serious flu complications? -- Can the flu be treated? -- What should I do if I think I have the flu? -- Should I still get a flu vaccine? -- What are the benefits of antiviral drugs? -- What antiviral drugs are recommended? -- What are the possible side effects of antiviral drugs? -- When should antiviral drugs be taken for treatment? -- How long should antiviral drugs be taken? -- Can children take antiviral drugs? -- Can pregnant and breastfeeding women take anitviral drugs?-- Who should take antiviral drugs?2020834

Solid Dispersion Technology for Improving the Solubility of Antiviral Drugs

Most drugs, including antiviral drugs, show low solubility in water, which affects dissolution, bioavailability, and therapeutic effectiveness. Therefore, many antiviral drugs are given in very large doses. One of the efforts to overcome these problems is the application of solid dispersions in which polymers and surfactants can trap drug molecules that are in the amorphous phase. Drugs in a hydrophilic carrier will increase wettability, water absorption capacity, and porosity of particles, so that the drug is released better. This review article will discuss the development of technology in solid-state, how solid dispersion overcomes the lack of solubility and the rate of dissolution of antiviral drugs, and solid dispersion preparation techniques. We also discuss some examples of successful applications of solid dispersion methods to antiviral drugs that have been circulating on the market. Overall, this review article offers information of innovation in the development of antiviral drugs to provide more solid dispersion antiviral drug products

Treating influenza (flu)

Information for People at High Risk for Flu ComplicationFor more information, visit: www.cdc.gov/flu or call 1-800-CDC-INFOCS HCVG-15-FLU-101treating-influenza.pdfDo you have asthma, diabetes or chronic heart disease? -- Why am I at greater risk of serious flu complications? -- Can the flu be treated? -- What should I do if I think I have the flu? -- Should I still get a flu vaccine? -- What are the benefits of antiviral drugs? -- What antiviral drugs are recommended? -- What are the possible side effects of antiviral drugs? -- When should antiviral drugs be taken for treatment? -- How long should antiviral drugs be taken? -- Can children take antiviral drugs? -- Can pregnant and breastfeeding women take anitviral drugs?-- Who should take antiviral drugs?2018598

Antiviral activities and applications of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs)

The emergence and re-emergence of viral epidemics and the risks of antiviral drug resistance are a serious threat to global public health. New options to supplement or replace currently used drugs for antiviral therapy are urgently needed. The research in the field of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) has been booming in the last few decades, in particular in view of their strong antimicrobial activities and high stability. The RiPPs with antiviral activity, especially those against enveloped viruses, are now also gaining more interest. RiPPs have a number of advantages over small molecule drugs in terms of specificity and affinity for targets, and over protein-based drugs in terms of cellular penetrability, stability and size. Moreover, the great engineering potential of RiPPs provides an efficient way to optimize them as potent antiviral drugs candidates. These intrinsic advantages underscore the good therapeutic prospects of RiPPs in viral treatment. With the aim to highlight the underrated antiviral potential of RiPPs and explore their development as antiviral drugs, we review the current literature describing the antiviral activities and mechanisms of action of RiPPs, discussing the ongoing efforts to improve their antiviral potential and demonstrate their suitability as antiviral therapeutics. We propose that antiviral RiPPs may overcome the limits of peptide-based antiviral therapy, providing an innovative option for the treatment of viral disease

Self-Interest versus Group-Interest in Antiviral Control

Antiviral agents have been hailed to hold considerable promise for the treatment and prevention of emerging viral diseases like H5N1 avian influenza and SARS. However, antiviral drugs are not completely harmless, and the conditions under which individuals are willing to participate in a large-scale antiviral drug treatment program are as yet unknown. We provide population dynamical and game theoretical analyses of large-scale prophylactic antiviral treatment programs. Throughout we compare the antiviral control strategy that is optimal from the public health perspective with the control strategy that would evolve if individuals make their own, rational decisions. To this end we investigate the conditions under which a large-scale antiviral control program can prevent an epidemic, and we analyze at what point in an unfolding epidemic the risk of infection starts to outweigh the cost of antiviral treatment. This enables investigation of how the optimal control strategy is moulded by the efficacy of antiviral drugs, the risk of mortality by antiviral prophylaxis, and the transmissibility of the pathogen. Our analyses show that there can be a strong incentive for an individual to take less antiviral drugs than is optimal from the public health perspective. In particular, when public health asks for early and aggressive control to prevent or curb an emerging pathogen, for the individual antiviral drug treatment is attractive only when the risk of infection has become non-negligible. It is even possible that from a public health perspective a situation in which everybody takes antiviral drugs is optimal, while the process of individual choice leads to a situation where nobody is willing to take antiviral drugs

Treating influenza (flu)

Do you have asthma, diabetes or chronic heart disease? If so, you are at high risk of serious illness if you get the flu. In past flu seasons, as many as 80 percent of adults hospitalized from flu complications had a long-term health condition, as did about 50 percent of hospitalized children. Asthma, diabetes and chronic heart disease were among the most common of these. Treatment with an influenza antiviral drug can mean the difference between having milder illness instead of very serious illness that could result in a hospital stay. This fact sheet provides information about using prescription antiviral drugs to treat influenza in people at high risk for flu complications.CS250831ADo you have asthma, diabetes or chronic heart disease? -- Why am I at greater risk of serious flu complications? -- Can the flu be treated? -- What should I do if I think I have the flu? -- Should I still get a flu vaccine? -- What are the benefits of antiviral drugs? -- What are the possible side effects of antiviral drugs? -- When should antiviral drugs be taken for treatment? -- What antiviral drugs are recommended? -- How long should antiviral drugs be taken? -- Can children and pregnant women take antiviral drugs? -- Who should take antiviral drugs? -- Following is a list of all the health and age factors that are known to increase a person's risk of getting serious complications from the flu.201

Evaluating the Potential of Repurposing Commercially Available Drugs for the Treatment of Viral Infections

Viral infections that are often overlooked as common seasonal illnesses such as influenza can rapidly become a public threat. They threaten society as new, more dangerous strains of these common viruses emerge and as strains develop resistance to current vaccines and antiviral treatments (Kochanek, Murphy, Xu, & Tejada-Vera, 2014). To combat this, the development of antiviral treatments with novel mechanisms of action is essential. Repurposing drugs instead of developing new drugs can save years of development time and hundreds of millions of dollars (DiMasi, Hansen, & Grabowski, 2003). To support the effort to discover drugs with unique mechanisms of action, a library of commercially available compounds was screened for antiviral activity. The compounds were tested against influenza A virus, enterovirus 068 (EV-068), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and parainfluenza virus (PIV). In addition, fluoxetine hydrochloride (Prozac®) was tested for activity against EV-068 as a proof-of-concept to verify our methodology and to support the idea that repurposed drugs may have antiviral activity with potential to function as effective treatments. Antiviral activity was tested using in vitro antiviral assays that measure virus-induced cytopathic effect (CPE) in the presence of test compounds. CPE was measured by neutral red (NR) staining. Partial antiviral activity was observed for several compounds against influenza, and that activity was confirmed using a direct virus yield reduction assay (VYR) for multiple drug concentrations. However, no antiviral activity was observed for any of the compounds evaluated against EV-068, RSV, or PIV. The drugs with anti-influenza activity may have potential for further development into effective antiviral treatments

Cytomegalovirus replication steps and the actions of antiviral drugs

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a beta herpesvirus that inflicts an active infection in the fetus and immunosuppressive patients. The virus encodes many proteins that work together with cellular factors to achieve virus replication. In addition to vaccines, antiviral drugs can be deployed to manipulate how the virus replicates and minimize its pathogenicity. The five antiviral drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have shown adverse reactions and the antiviral drug resistance were reported. Hence, this warrants the need for urgent development of a novel antiviral drug. Detailed understanding of the virus replication steps and how cellular signals interact with these steps will be key for pharmacological developments of for anti HCMV drugs. This review summarized all the drugs that target the virus proteins and cell signals that mediate CMV replication

Can Antiviral Drugs Contain Pandemic Influenza Transmission?

Antiviral drugs dispensed during the 2009 influenza pandemic generally failed to contain transmission. This poses the question of whether preparedness for a future pandemic should include plans to use antiviral drugs to mitigate transmission