DATE: Thursday, September 25, 1997          TAG: 9709250349

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: BOSTON                            LENGTH:   53 lines

FLU DRUG FOUND EFFECTIVE IN CUTTING DURATION OF ONE'S ILLNESS

An experimental new medicine can cut a bout of flu almost in half, a study has found.

The drug, called GG167 or zanamivir, works best if used by people with especially bad symptoms or if taken soon after the misery strikes.

In these circumstances, doctors found that the medicine reduced a typical episode of flu from seven days to four. But it made little difference if given late in the infection or when symptoms were mild.

The drug, an inhaled powder, is still being tested and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for routine use.

Its maker, Glaxo Wellcome, which paid for the latest study, plans more extensive testing during this winter's flu season. A similar drug, code-named GS4104, is being developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. and Hoffman-LaRoche.

Two other flu medicines are on the market. They are Symmetrel, known generically as amantadine, and Flumadine, known generically as rimantadine.

Both are effective against influenza A, which causes about two-thirds of the estimated 20 million flu cases in the United States each year. But they are useless against influenza B, the viral strain that causes the rest.

Zanamivir has not been tested head-to-head against the other approved flu pills, but unlike them, it works against both varieties of the flu virus.

In the latest study, zanamivir was tested on 262 people with flu infections in the United States and Europe. The study was published in today's issue of the New England Journal of medicine.

Flu victims typically have a fever as well as coughs, headaches, muscle aches and a sore throat. Most cases can be prevented by the flu vaccine, which is 70 percent to 90 percent effective in adults.

However, many people do not take the shots, and Dr. Frederick G. Hayden, who directed the latest study, said zanamivir is likely to find users if it is eventually approved.

``Influenza is not a trivial illness,'' said Hayden, a physician at the University of Virginia. ``Cough goes on for a week or longer. People often don't fully recover for several weeks.''

Besides the need to be treated quickly, another drawback of the treatment is the sometimes difficult chore of diagnosing exactly who has the flu. No simple test exists, and doctors typically are guided by symptoms alone.

In the latest research, doctors initially enrolled 417 suspected flu cases in the study. However, one-quarter of the European patients and half of the Americans turned out not to have the flu at all.

In an editorial in the journal, Dr. Robert B. Couch of Baylor College of Medicine said zanamivir appears to be very safe and might also help prevent people from catching the flu.

The drug works by blocking a protein called neuraminidase, which the virus needs to penetrate mucus secretions and to release new copies of the virus from infected cells.

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