When to Use Tamiflu for Flu? Who Should Not Use This Medicine?

When to Use Tamiflu for Flu? Who Should Not Use This Medicine is easier to approach with a clear overview and reliable steps. This guide organizes the essential information, highlights practical details, and explains what to check along the way.

Thinking it was just a common cold, Ms. H went to the pharmacy to buy flu medicine. However, her condition did not improve, she still had a high fever, was very tired, and had a poor appetite. In this situation, her family took her to the emergency room that same night.

CT scan of the lungs showing damage. Photo: BVCC.

At Medlatec General Hospital, the doctor ordered the necessary paraclinical techniques to serve the diagnosis. In particular, the influenza A test gave a positive result.

High-resolution computed tomography of the lungs shows thickened bronchial walls in both lungs with ground-glass opacities, solid nodules, and interstitial thickening in the upper lobe of the left lung.

Ms. H was diagnosed with influenza A with complications of pneumonia. Currently, the patient continues to be treated and monitored at the hospital.

It is worth mentioning that not only Ms. H. Got into trouble because she bought medicine to treat the flu herself. According to doctors, in reality, many people have a subjective mentality when they get the flu, thinking it is a mild illness so they don't open the doctor. Instead, most people have the habit of "playing their own doctor" and buying medicine to treat it.

In particular, with influenza A, many people when sick bought Tamiflu to take without a doctor's prescription. This is warned to pose many potential risks to the user's health.

Do not buy Tamiflu to treat flu on your own.

According to doctors, influenza, also known as seasonal flu, is an acute infectious disease with symptoms of fever, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, runny nose, sore throat and cough. The main causative agents are influenza A (H3N2), influenza A (H1N1), influenza B and influenza C viruses. The disease is highly contagious, spreading rapidly through the respiratory tract through small droplets of saliva or nasal secretions from sneezing and coughing.

80-90% of flu cases are mild and can heal on their own. Only cases with high fever, continuous fever, and lung damage require hospitalization.

Doctors recommend not to buy Tamiflu without a prescription and close monitoring by a specialist. Photo: TL

Associate Professor, Dr. Do Duy Cuong - Director of the Center for Tropical Diseases, Bach Mai Hospital said that the antiviral drug for treating influenza is Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) which helps to quickly reduce symptoms. However, it requires a prescription and close monitoring by a specialist.

In addition to Tamiflu, doctors will use many other drugs to combine treatment. In cases of flu but only cough, runny nose, mild fever, chest X-ray shows no lesions, only need outpatient treatment, improve health to let the disease go away on its own.

According to MSc. Dr. Tran Thu Nguyet, Vietnam Institute of Applied Medicine, Tamiflu is an antiviral drug but unlike most antibiotics, it doesn't have the ability to kill the influenza virus.

Tamiflu is a drug that inhibits the neurominidase enzyme of the influenza virus. It enters the cell and replicates after the influenza virus enters the body. This enzyme then helps the influenza virus to separate, leave the host cell and find new cells. Tamiflu inhibits the replication of this virus, reducing the spread of the influenza virus in the body.

However, Tamiflu is only effective if the flu is diagnosed early within the first 48 hours, with symptoms of high, persistent fever, lung damage, and as prescribed by a doctor. Patients are mainly treated with fever reducers and care to prevent complications after 48 hours.

People who need treatment with Tamiflu:

- Flu patients with obvious symptoms such as high, prolonged, continuous fever and lung damage.

- People in groups susceptible to severe flu complications such as children under 2 years old and the elderly over 65 years old, patients with chronic diseases such as asthma, heart disease, immunodeficiency.

Note, Tamiflu also causes some side effects, the most common of which is vomiting. In addition, there are diarrhea, headaches, and kidney toxicity in people with kidney disease.

"Tamiflu is not a "miracle drug" for flu. Worryingly, Tamiflu abuse can lead to many health consequences, such as increasing drug resistance," Dr. Tran Thu Nguyet emphasized.

Things to do when flu season increases.

Experts recommend that instead of waiting until you get sick to take medicine, people can proactively prevent the flu by getting a seasonal flu vaccine every year to boost immunity against the flu.

Ensure personal hygiene, cover your mouth when sneezing; wash your hands regularly with soap and clean water; clean your nose and throat daily with salt water; keep your body warm, eat enough nutrients to improve your health.

Limit unnecessary contact with flu patients or suspected cases; use medical masks when necessary.

In particular, people should not arbitrarily buy and use antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu, but must follow the instructions and prescription of a doctor.

Fever, runny nose, headache, fatigue, you need to open a medical facility immediately for examination and timely treatment to avoid possible complications when you have symptoms of cough.

Final Thoughts

The most reliable way to handle when to use tamiflu for flu? Who should not use this medicine is to follow the process in order, verify each important setting, and test the result before moving on. Use the guidance above as a practical reference, then adjust the details for your device, software version, or specific goal.