The side effects of anti-virals
Updated on 10 August 2009
Science correspondent Julian Rush outlines the side effects of anti-virals used to tackle swine flu and the signs parents should look out for.
"The key side effect from these anti-virals as far as children are concerned is vomiting. Vomiting in adults is not too serious a problem, but it is a side effect of these anti-viral drugs and around one in 20 people are affected by it.
"In adults it is not as much of a problem - they have a bigger body weight and they are sensible enough to replenish the fluids. In small children in particular vomiting means they can loose a lot of their body weight in liquid very quickly, and you can get serious complications of being dehydrated which can require hospitalisations.
"The advice very much is for parents to watch their child and see if they are getting much worse. If they do start vomiting seriously, that is the time to be alarmed, not when they have just got the mild flu symptoms.
"The Department of Health says it will review its policy. They haven't decided anything yet, but this is a result of the fact that the contingency plan - the public pushing of anti-virals almost as magic bullets - was for when we were looking at this as a potential serious disease like bird flu.
"Now it turns out this is much milder and so in the event of it being much milder, the government is in effect being asked to rethink it's policy, much as they have done in America, for example, where they decided not to bother to close schools because of swine flu, because actually it makes little or no difference. The same may well apply here.
"The Department of Health will now be looking and deciding whether or not to continue to suggest that children, particularly under fives, should be given Tamiflu as quickly as possible, which is the current advice on the Health Protection Agency website."
