Scientists in Japan have developed a pill that can kill the flu virus within one day, making the need for vaccines obsolete.
According to late-stage trials on Japanese flu patients, everybody who took the pill had their flu virus wiped within 24 hours.
Despite the ongoing success of the trials, the FDA say the pill won’t be available in America any time soon.
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Daily Mail reports: It also only requires a single does, while Tamiflu requires two doses a day, for five days. Both drugs take roughly the same amount of time to completely contain flu symptoms, but researches said the experimental compound provides instant relief to patients.
Shinogi, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, said the drugs fast response to killing off the virus is important because it reduces the risk of contagious it is.
The World Health Organization told the outlet that the Shionogi & Co. compound could change the way doctors and nurses treat people sick with the flu. ‘The data that we’ve seen looks very promising,’ he said.
Shinogai’s CEO Isao Teshirogi said the compound works by blocking the flu from hijacking other cells in the body, thus keeping it from spreading. Takeki Uehara, who led the compound’s development, told the Wall Street Journal it was developed by researchers studying an anti-HIV drug that does the same thing.
‘So we said: ‘Why don’t we build on our HIV knowledge to find a way to treat the flu?’ And we did,’ she said.
Shinoagi and Roche, the company that makes Tamiflu, said they are in the process of conducting a second-stage of global trials. They will then apply for US approval this summer. It could take up until next year to get a decision, Shinogai said.
The flu has been particularly deadly this year. According to Fortune, recent data from the CDC reveals that the virus was responsible for 10 per cent of deaths that occurred in the first few weeks of this year.
The outlet claims there were 40,414 deaths in the US during the third week of 2018 and 4,064 were from pneumonia or influenza.
