Influenza Drugs – Current
Standards and Novel Alternatives |
Tracee Wee and Håvard Jenssen* |
Roskilde University, Dept. of Science, Systems & Models,
Universitetsvej 1, Building 18.1, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark |
| *Corresponding author: |
Dr. Håvard Jenssen, Roskilde University,
Dept. of
Science, Systems & Models,
Universitetsvej 1, Building 18.1,
DK-4000
Roskilde, Denmark,
Phone : +45 4674 2877,
Fax : +45 4674 3010,
E-mail : jenssen@ruc.dk |
|
| Received September 25, 2009; Accepted November 01, 2009; Published
November 02, 2009 |
| Citation: Wee T, Jenssen H (2009) Influenza Drugs – Current Standards
and Novel Alternatives. J Antivir Antiretrovir 1: 001-010.
doi:10.4172/jaa.1000001 |
| |
Copyright: © 2009 Wee T, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author
and source are credited. |
| Abstract |
Epidemics caused by different strains of influenza A virus
are constantly plaguing the world, traditionally causing
severe infections and mortality in infants and the elderly,
leaving approximately 300,000-500,000 people dead
annually. Despite the fact that there are both a relatively
successful annual vaccine program and a handful of active
antiviral drugs on the market, the continually high
annual mortality rate due to influenza infections demonstrates
the pressing need for new antiviral drugs targeting
influenza infections. Consequently this field of research
has blossomed considerably over the past decade, and several
novel strategies of intervention have been investigated
for different microbial invasions, e.g. antibodies,
biologicals (i.e. proteins and peptides) and small molecule
agonists and antagonists (for review see Hamill et al., 2008; Kanzler et al., 2007; Lai and Gallo, 2008; O'Neill, 2006; Romagne, 2007; Wales et al., 2007). Another very promising
class of drugs are the so-called host defence peptides
and synthetic derivative thereof. Therapeutic strategies for
influenza treatment, in addition to the development and the clinical status of novel potential influenza drugs will
be discussed in brief in this review. |
|
|
|