Flu

Biography

Biography: Irina Leneva

Abstract

Pneumonia often occurs secondary to influenza infection and accounts for a large proportion of the morbidity and mortality associated with seasonal and pandemic influenza outbreaks. The antiviral drug umifenovir (Arbidol) is licenced in Russia for treatment and propylaxis of acute respiratory infection including influenza A and B infection.. In the present study, we investigated the efficacy of umifenovir or oseltamivir in a mouse model of secondary S. aureus pneumonia following A/California/04/2009 (H1N1) influenza virus infection. We also performed a clinical study on the effectiveness of umifenovir in reducing flu-associated pneumonia. Experiments in mice showed that oral treatment with oseltamivir (20 mg/kg/day) and umifenovir (40 and 60 mg/kg/day ) improved survival in mice from 0% to 90%, significantly prolonged survival and abolished weight loss. The treatments also inhibited virus titer by ≥2 logs and viable bacterial counts in the lungs of mice. The lungs of mice treated with oseltamivir or umifenovir showed less-severe histopathologic findings compared to the control group. The observation case-control clinical study was set up in season 2010/2011 and 2014/2015 and included 5287 patients admitted to 88 hospitals with acute respiratory viral infections (ARVI) from 50 regions of the Russian Federation. The analysis showed that in high-risk groups of patients the incidence of bacterial complications (pneumonia) was higher than the average for the study population. Our observational studies suggest the benefit of early umifenovir treatment (i.e. within 48 hours after illness onset) in reducing pneumonia incidence in high-risk .