"Feb 3, 2011 (CIDRAP News) British researchers say 3 of 27 cases of oseltamivir (Tamiflu)-resistant 2009 H1N1 influenza detected in Britain so far this season were in outpatients who had no known exposure to the drug, suggesting that resistant strains may be spreading at a low level in the community.
Writing in Eurosurveillance today, the authors say the finding "suggests possible onward transmission of resistant strains and could be an indication of a possibility of changing epidemiology of oseltamivir-resistant influenza A(H1N1) virus." However, no transmission has been confirmed so far, they report.
Scattered cases of oseltamivir-resistant 2009 H1N1have been detected since early in the 2009 pandemic, most of them in immunosuppressed patients or in hospital patients who had been treated with the drug. A Jan 14 report from the World Health Organization put the global total at 319 cases out of 20,000 samples tested, the British researchers note."
