Editorial commentary: What did we learn from the emergency use authorization of peramivir in 2009?

摘要

The recent pandemic caused by influenza A 2009 pH1N1 virus caused a substantial amount of severe disease, and disproportionately affected younger persons, pregnant women, and those with certain health conditions [1,2]. These critically iLL patients focused attention on gaps in our available antiviral agents for influenza. The most critical gaps include the need for parent -eral agents for critically ill patients and agents active against influenza virus resistant to currently available antiviral drugs. Like most influenza viruses circulating in recent years, pHlNl was uniformly resistant to 2 of the 4 licensed agents, rimanta-dine and amantadine. Fortunately, it was sensitive to the licensed neuraminidase inhibitors, oseltamivir and zanamivir, in contrast to the oseltamivir-resistant H1N1 viruses that had been circulating before the pandemic [3, 4].