News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Clinicians are heeding antiviral prescribing guidance changes made over the past decade because of antiviral resistance and a greater focus on protecting high-risk patients, particularly during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, researchers reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Phone-based flu lines that operated during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic increased public flu knowledge, may have prevented unnecessary 911 calls and visits to health facilities, and eased access to antivirals when appropriate, a recent report found.

(CIDRAP News) – Survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that at the peak of the H1N1 influenza pandemic in the fall of 2009, Americans were more worried about seasonal flu than the pandemic virus, according to a study published in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses.

(CIDRAP News) – A detailed genetic analysis of an oseltamivir-resistant 2009 H1N1 virus responsible for a cluster of illnesses in Australia in 2011 found evidence that the viruses maintained their fitness when the resistance mutation was present, suggesting that widespread emergence of the strain may be more likely, according to the researchers.