It seems that even though influenza has been shown to be better treated with anti-viral medication doctors and hospitals continue to use antibiotics, often with deadly consequences.
New research has shown that anti-viral medication can be life-saving but patients sick with influenza during the influenza season are far more likely to be prescribed antibiotics than antiviral medication.
In two new studies the use of the antiviral medication oseltamivir (Tamiflu), was seen to reduce mortality among patients by 71 percent and significantly reduced hospitalization and complications among young children.
Allison McGeer, a consultant in infectious diseases at Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto, says in some cases the failure to provide antiviral treatment may have been fatal.
McGeer and colleagues in the Toronto Invasive Bacterial Diseases Network, selected patients who were taken to hospitals for emergency treatment of symptoms due to influenza.
Many of the patients had been initially treated by their doctor and many of those patients were prescribed medication.
Of the 185 children in the study under age 15, primary care physicians prescribed antibiotics, normally used for treating bacterial infections, in about 24 percent of the cases.
When the children reached the hospital, they were prescribed antibiotics 75 percent of the time; none were administered antivirals.
In the group ages 15 to 64, antibiotics were prescribed 23 percent of the time at the doctors' offices and were prescribed 84 percent of the time at the hospital, although 24 percent were prescribed Tamiflu as well.
For the older patients, 23 percent were offered antibiotics at the doctors' office, 91 percent were given antibiotics at the hospital, although 34 percent were also prescribed Tamiflu.
There were 25 deaths in the study, 22 among persons over age 65, most occurring in the people who were not treated with Tamiflu.
McGeer says she is at a loss as to why doctors fail to get the message that influenza is a virus and antivirals work on viruses whereas antibiotics do not.
Experts say the problem is not confined to Canada but is possibly worse than that in the U.S.
It appears that part of the problem lies with the lack of rapid testing facilities in most pediatric offices and also that there are so many febrile illnesses in children that it is often hard to tell if an illness is influenza.