Antiviral Treatment and Prophylaxis Guidance

Recommendations
In Ireland, recommendations for antiviral medications remain unchanged as per the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and CDC (USA). On 10th April 2014, CDC issued a response to a Cochrane Collaboration report on antiviral effectiveness with influenza.

ECDC scientific advice
Expert Opinion on neuraminidase inhibitors for prevention and treatment of influenza - Review of recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses

ECDC antiviral treatment of influenza 

Dobson, Whitley, Pocock and Monto published “Oseltamivir treatment for influenza in adults: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials” in the Lancet on January 30th 2015.  

Their findings show that oseltamivir (Tamiflu) treatment in adults with influenza accelerates time to clinical symptom alleviation, reduces risk of lower respiratory tract complications and admittance to hospital but increases the occurrence of nausea and vomiting (side effects of oseltamivir). They recorded no effect on serious adverse events. They included all published and unpublished Roche-sponsored randomised placebo-controlled double blinded trials of 75mg twice daily of oseltamivir in adults. They also searched Medline, PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and the ClinicalTrials.gov trials register for other relevant trials published before Jan 1, 2014 (search last updated on Nov 27, 2014).

See http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2962449-1/abstract

The guidance on this page was last reviewed: November 2018