... who have been symptomatic for no more than 48 hours.

This is a serious issue with these drugs. In general, I won't go to the doctor in that time frame. This is especially the case if one gets symptoms on a friday afternoon - the doctors do not open until Monday. By the time I decide I*m sick enough to visit the doctor, I've already passed the time frame (Exceptions apply, of course). And I know I'm not the only one.

To me, this is a major downfall of such remedies. This could seriously make a difference in the way the flu spreads, but for that to really happen, we need more ways to get seen by doctors or nurse practitioners. We should encourage folks to see the doctor for "little" things. We need to make sure everyone can get seen. We probably need to make sure folks in service industries get seen immediately and won't lose their jobs over such things. This is mostly because service industry workers can spread these to a wide population easily without controls.

Additionally, compared with placebo, baloxavir treatment significantly reduced the following:

The duration of flu symptoms, by more than 1 day (median time, 53.7 hours vs 80.2 hours; P <.0001);

The duration of fever, by nearly 1 day (median time, 24.5 hours vs 42.0 hours; P <.0001);

The length of time viruses continued to be released from the body (median time of viral shedding, 24.0 hours vs 96.0 hours; P <.0001); and

The levels of virus in the nose and throat from 24 hours through 120 hours.

Relative to oseltamivir, baloxavir treatment resulted in similar median time to alleviation of symptoms (median, 53.5 hours for baloxavir vs 53.8 hours for oseltamivir; P = .7560) and similar time to resolution of fever reduction (median, 24.4 hours vs 24.0 hours; P = .9225), respectively.

However, baloxavir treatment was associated with significantly reduced viral shedding duration (24.0 hours vs 72.0 hours; P < .0001) and significantly lower levels of virus in the nose and throat at 24 hours and 72 hours.

"It is unclear why the time to alleviation of symptoms was similar in the baloxavir group and the oseltamivir group even though baloxavir showed greater antiviral activity," the authors write. "The findings suggest that the symptom benefit of antiviral agents may have a ceiling in self-limited influenza illness in adults, perhaps because viral replication levels are decreasing by the time of presentation and illness pathogenesis is linked to host proinflammatory responses."

Overall, baloxavir was well-tolerated and had a lower incidence of adverse events reported (20.7%) compared with placebo (24.6%) or oseltamivir (24.8%). The most common adverse events were diarrhea (3%), bronchitis (2.6%), nausea (1.3%), and sinusitis (1.1%).

"The antiviral effects that were observed with baloxavir in patients with uncomplicated influenza provide encouragement with respect to its potential value in treating complicated or severe influenza infections," the authors write.

> The most common adverse reactions in patients taking Xofluza included diarrhea and bronchitis.

I wish the article listed the frequency or likelihood of getting these reactions. Given the choice between flu and bronchitis, I'll take the flu.

Apparently the main value of this new product is that it reduces the infectious time period (“viral shedding”) from 3 days (using Tamiflu) to only 1 day.

Would be interesting to see what impact that has during flu season.

Yikes, more and more efforts to combat the flu seem to be marginal or counter-productive. Too bad we can't just stay home and quarantine ourselves when we feel like death...

Tamiflu only reduces symptoms by one day when taken within 48 hours of their onset. Who knows they have the flu and not a cold at that point? Looks like this is a similar joke:

> In the second trial, there was no difference in the time to alleviation of symptoms between subjects who received Xofluza and those who received the other flu treatment.

Can you combine this with tamiflu for super recovery?

Is this only for flu or could it become a general purpose anti viral?