"Flu River" --from Science News for Kids
"Flu River" --from Science News for Kids
A great modern-day problem for students to investigate...
"Tamiflu, the primary flu-fighting drug, is getting into surface waters where ducks and other water birds may pick it up. If the birds are carrying flu viruses, which many normally do, those viruses may develop a resistance to the drug, scientists now worry.
What if the solution to one problem causes other problems down the road? That may be the case in the ongoing struggle to fight the flu. Flu season is almost here, which means more and more people may be taking Tamiflu in the months ahead. Tamiflu is a popular anti-flu drug that treats both seasonal flu strains and the new H1N1 flu, an unpredictable disease better known as swine flu.
But this increased use of Tamiflu may be introducing new problems. A team of Japanese scientists recently studied three rivers in Japan and found them to be contaminated with Tamiflu’s active ingredient, oseltamivir carboxylate or OC. They found the same contamination in the water discharged from local sewage plants, water that ends up in those rivers. People excreted the drug in their urine, and water discharged from the sewage plants carried it to the rivers."
A great modern-day problem for students to investigate...
"Tamiflu, the primary flu-fighting drug, is getting into surface waters where ducks and other water birds may pick it up. If the birds are carrying flu viruses, which many normally do, those viruses may develop a resistance to the drug, scientists now worry.
What if the solution to one problem causes other problems down the road? That may be the case in the ongoing struggle to fight the flu. Flu season is almost here, which means more and more people may be taking Tamiflu in the months ahead. Tamiflu is a popular anti-flu drug that treats both seasonal flu strains and the new H1N1 flu, an unpredictable disease better known as swine flu.
But this increased use of Tamiflu may be introducing new problems. A team of Japanese scientists recently studied three rivers in Japan and found them to be contaminated with Tamiflu’s active ingredient, oseltamivir carboxylate or OC. They found the same contamination in the water discharged from local sewage plants, water that ends up in those rivers. People excreted the drug in their urine, and water discharged from the sewage plants carried it to the rivers."
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