• Azfar A Ishaqui, Amer H Khan, Syed A Sulaiman, Muhammad Alsultan, and Irfanullah Khan.
• Discipline of Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. E-mail. azfar.hd@hotmail.com.
• Saudi Med J. 2020 Sep 1; 41 (9): 1015-1021.

ObjectivesTo assess the comparative efficacy of oseltamivir alone and oseltamivir-antibiotic therapy for early relief of symptoms associated with severe influenza-A (non-H1N1) and influenza-B infection hospitalized patients.MethodsIn this retrospective multicenter study conducted from 2016-2019, enrolled patients were divided into 2 treatment groups. Group 1 patients were started on Antiviral drug (oseltamivir) alone therapy. Group 2 patients were initiated on Antiviral drug (oseltamivir) in combination with Antibiotic therapy. Using acute respiratory illness scoring, symptom severity score was assessed daily for 8 symptoms namely, fever, fatigue, headache, cough, sore throat, wheezing, muscle ache and nasal congestion. For each symptom the severity was scored from scale 0-3. Results: Overall mean ARI severity score was statistically significantly lower (p less than 0.05) on day 2 (14.65-vs-13.68), day 3 (12.95-vs-11.67) and day 4 (10.31-vs-9.12 ) for influenza-A (non-H1N1) while day 3 (12.52-vs-11.87) and day 4 (11.21-vs-10.18) for influenza-B patients for patients who were initiated on oseltamivir-antibiotic combination therapy. Fever, cough and nasal congestion showed statistically significant improvement within 4 days of initiation of combination treatment. Fatigue, sore throat and muscle ache improvement pattern was same for both treatment protocols.ConclusionOseltamivir-antibiotic combination treatment showed early resolution of some symptoms with cumulatively reduced mean symptom severity score in severe influenza infection hospitalized patients.

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