流感抗病毒藥品的新進展

流感是一種嚴重的傳染病，流感在兒童、老年人或是其他高風險族群中是致命的威脅。除了耐藥性流感變異病毒與流感病毒本身的新突變外，現有的疫苗並無法完全保護人們免受流感病毒感染。新型高病原性禽流感病毒株，例如HSNI及H7N9等可能無預警的引爆全球疫情，將造成流感罹病率與死亡率的顯著增加。2007年以來，在一些國家與地區（包括日本、美國、中國及歐洲等）的病人，陸續檢測出少數具oseltamivir抗藥性A型流感H1N1病毒分離株。同時，幾乎所有季節性流感病毒都存在對金剛烷的廣泛抗藥性。因此，持續研發新的分子靶標藥品與創造性治療策略，來對抗流感病毒是有需要的。 Influenza is a serious infectious disease, which is life-threatening in children, seniors and other high-risk individuals. In addition to the drug-resistant influenza variants and the emerging mutations of influenza virus itself, the available vaccines do not protect completely against seasonal influenza virus. Novel highly-virulent influenza strains such as H5N1 and H7N9 arose unexpectedly to cause global pandemics with markedly increased morbidity and mortality. A small minority of isolates of pandemic H1N1 influenza A virus with oseltamivir resistance were detected from patients in several countries, including Japan, US, China and Europe, etc. since 2007. Meanwhile, widespread resistance to adamantane is now present in virtually all seasonal influenza viruses. Therefore, there is a continuing need for the development of new molecular target drugs and creative strategies to combat influenza viruses.