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Influenza 2006: What Pharmacists Should Know
Denver,CO -- September 1, 2006
RxSchool is proud to announce the Featured CE lesson for the month of September, "Influenza 2006: What Pharmacists Should Know."
One can certainly make the case that the most frequent signs and symptoms many pharmacists see in daily practice are those of the common cold and flu. Yet with all their experience, how many pharmacists can say with impunity that they really know how to properly distinguish between the mild symptoms of the common cold and potentially life threatening sequelae of the influenza virus?
Influenza, commonly referred to as the "flu", is in fact a very specific, medium- sized RNA viral infection with defining respiratory characteristics. Did you know that there are three major types of flu viruses (A, B and C) and that it is type A which causes rare, but recurrent pandemic outbreaks? The specific type of influenza virus is determined by two antigenic surface glycoproteins, neuraminidase (N) and hemagglutinin (H). In fact, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), it was the specific H1N1 form of influenza A that was responsible for the 1918 "Spanish influenza" pandemic which killed an estimated 40-50 million people world wide.
In this months featured CE article "Influenza 2006: What Pharmacists Should Know", author Joshua Schwiesow, Pharm. D., sheds light on the most important aspects of recognizing and treating this disease. He covers topics ranging from what is influenza and who gets it, to the pathology of respiratory diseases and the challenges in prevention and treatment. Did you know that?
- virus proteins reassort and change by "antigen drift" and antigen shift"?
- viruses are spread from animals to humans and humans to humans by a variety of vectors?
- viruses can remain viable outside of the host for an extended period of time depending on the contact surface?
- Influenza is diagnosed using various antigen detection tests and serologies?
- The "flu" can lead to rare but serious complications such as pneumonia, Reye syndrome, Guillian-Barre Syndrome, myosystitis/myocarditis and neurological complications?
- Vaccines must be reformulated each year to ward off the various strains?
- CDC determines vaccination priorities and at-risk groups?
- Patients at high risk who cannot be vaccinated are treated with chemoprophylaxis?
- And do you know which drugs are commonly used for chemoprophylaxis to prevent influenza infection?
As we are now aware, health experts have been monitoring a new and extremely severe influenza virus with the H5N1 strain for almost eight years. According to WHO statistics, this H5N1 strain first infected humans in Hong Kong in 1997, causing 18 cases, including six deaths. Since mid-2003, this virus has caused the largest and most severe outbreaks in poultry on record. In December 2003, infections in people exposed to sick birds were identified.
Since then, over 100 human cases have been laboratory confirmed in four Asian countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Viet Nam), and more than half of these people have died. Fortunately to date, the virus does not jump easily from birds to humans or spread readily among humans. Should H5N1 evolve however, into a form as contagious as normal influenza, a pandemic of epic proportions could once again spread throughout the globe.
Are you prepared?
For more information about this course and other distance learning programs for pharmacists, please log onto RxSchool.com and select from a wide variety of CE offerings and opportunities.
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