A third case of swine flu resistant to oseltamivir, announced today in Hong Kong, experts from the flu fear that drug resistance is spreading. Unlike the two previous cases, Hong Kong the patient has not taken oseltamivir itself, suggesting that she picked up a resistant strain of someone else.
When Denmark reported its first known resistant cases 09 A (H1N1) swine flu Tuesday, scientists have not yet alarmed, because the most likely developed resistance while the patient was virus treated and there was no evidence that she had infected anyone else. A second case, reported yesterday in Japan, also seems to have arisen while the patient took the drug. In the past, these mutant viruses induced by drugs often not very well spread.
The case of Hong Kong is different: The patient, a 16 year old daughter stopped at Hong Kong International Airport on June 11 after a flight from San Francisco, had only mild symptoms and never took oseltamivir, Hong Kong health authorities reported today. This suggests that this strain is already circulating in California and can not be hindered by the resistance mutation.
"It is very worrying that, fresh in the human population, it [virus] now seems to be able to maintain fitness despite the mutation and to be able to spread," virologist Jennifer McKimm- Breschkin Commonwealth science and industrial research Organization in Melbourne, Australia, told Bloomberg today.
The tests showed that the resistant virus is still sensitive to zanamivir, a chemical cousin of oseltamivir that some countries have added to their stockpiles for a pandemic.
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