Oseltamivir Early or Late Effect on Clinical Profile and Outcome of Swine Flu Cases in Children

This hospital based retrospective study was undertaken to evaluate the differences if any among early and late starters of Oseltamivir regarding persistence of symptoms like fever, cough, running nose and need for hospitalisation after their treatment with age and weight specific doses of Oseltamivir. In this study, we reviewed the case history of 193 children positive for novel HINI influenza by RT-PCR who came to the outpatient emergency department of Sir padampat Mother and Child Health institute, Jaipur, Rajsathan, India. Oseltamivir was given to all the patients. Out of 193,186 patients were treated on outdoor patient basis, while 7 patients required hospitalisation. Mortality among study group was nil. 182 patients were asymptomatic/clinically well, while 11 patients had persistence of symptoms at completion of five days of therapy in forms of fever (6/11), cough (11/11) and running nose (2/11), which also recovered with additional symptomatic therapy of 2-4 days. There was no significant difference statistically regarding outcome, persistence of fever and other symptoms, need for hospitalisation among early and late starters of oseltamivir, hence signifying that late therapy is as effective as early therapy for treatment of paediatric swine flu cases.