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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 1998;280:1729-1730.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

TWO EXPERIMENTAL drugs, members of a new class of agents that target a key enzyme required by influenza viruses, show promise as the most potent medications developed to date for treating the infection.

Results from studies recently reported at the 38th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) indicate that the new agents reduce the duration and severity of influenza in otherwise-healthy adults, including high-risk individuals such as the elderly. The new studies also found that the drugs, when given prophylactically, offered significant protection against infection during an outbreak of influenza.

Urgent Need

Infectious disease experts, who predict that another influenza pandemic is a matter of "when," not "if," say that the need for better tools for treating and preventing influenza is urgent.

False-color transmission electron micrograph of influenza viruses (orange) budding from an infected cell. A new class of drugs helps blunt or prevent flu . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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