The Health Service Executive has insisted the use of anti-virals to treat swine flu in young children was “appropriate” in certain circumstances.
Research by a team of scientists from the University of Oxford, published yesterday by the British Medical Journal,suggested anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu were unlikely to prevent complications from the virus in young children and were more likely to cause vomiting and in certain cases dehydration.
Responding to the study’s findings, the HSE’s head of health protection Dr Kevin Kelleher said the decision to prescribe anti-virals hinged on balancing the benefits received from treatment and the risks posed by side effects.
However, Dr Kelleher said the research on the efficacy of Tamiflu and other anti-virals on young children would be considered by the Government’s expert group on the flu pandemic.
The maker of Tamiflu, Roche pharmaceuticals, said today it was concerned by recent reports in the media about the effects of its medicine on children with swine flu.
In a statement issued through its Irish arm Roche Products (Ireland), the company said several regulatory authorities including the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved Tamiflu for use in children "based upon a positive benefit/risk assessment".
The company said significant data showed the medicine to be effective and well tolerated when used for the treatment or prevention of influenza in children over the age of one.
It said reports of the UK study may have resulted in parents being "unduly worried" about the possibility of their child receiving a prescription for the anti-viral.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's
Morning Irelandprogramme earlier today, Dr Kelleher said: "Our advice remains that it is appropriate to prescribe anti-virals to children with pre-existing conditions, or in children under the age of five, and more particularly under the age of three".
He said the Oxford research was “just one piece of evidence” and it had to be considered in the context of other research before the advice to doctors and parents is changed.
“We have taken the approach [in Ireland] that not everybody who gets the pandemic flu needs to be treated with anti-virals, and we have stated clearly that we believe only people who have pre-existing conditions, who are more likely to get complications, and those people who are severely ill with the virus should be treated in this way.”
Dr Kelleher said the disease is mild in most cases and “self-care” was an adequate form of treatment in the vast majority of people.
On the same programme, Dr Matthew Thompson, a member of the Oxford University team which carried out the research, said children under five are more at risk from developing complications from swine flu.
Dr Thompson said the benefits of using anti-virals to manage to the disease in children, who do not have underlying health problems, are “fairly small”. He said the advice by Irish authorities had been more sensible and pragmatic - in advocating clinical judgment in the management of the disease - that in other countries like the UK.
The “blanket approach” of treating everyone with anti-virals in the UK has contributed to a public hysteria about the flu, he said.
