Finding the suitable antiviral drug for every virus is still the biggest problem facing scientists all over the world. With the development of different techniques to find out how the virus infect the host cell, like the nano technology , scientist are able now to find out more about the process and discover the suitable point to target in the virus lifecycle.
We know that the antiviral drugs so not kill the virus but it prevent it from multiplication and infecting more host cells. So, the only option we have till now is to find out how to stop the virus from increasing its number exponentially inside the body.
Several decades ago, scientists though that the can control all the known viruses by producing the proper vaccines but they discovered that some of these viruses change a part of their genetic code during multiplication and this makes it impossible for the antibodies produced by the vaccine to identify the virus and attack it.
Although all the viruses undergo the same phases during multiplication but every one of these viruses produce different enzymes during the process. These highly mutant viruses are the real challenge for scientists now; they are looking for a method to make the antiviral drug effective against different strains of viruses by figuring out the common points in the lifecycle of different strands of the same virus.
The whole world is not looking at a solution for the different strands of influenza viruses. In the past years, influenza was relatively stable than now. The vaccination was an effective solution but now with the appearance of new stains like the chicken influenza and pig flu, the situation changed completely.
Even with the presence of some antiviral drugs that may help with these two strains like tamiflu but the scientists are looking for something more potent to give to the patient. Tamiflu or oseltamivir is a type of antiviral drugs that stop the propagation of the influenza virus from the infected cell to another healthy host cell. The dosage of tamiflu cannot be increased beyond a certain level so if the virus is within the concentration that tamiflu can control then the patient can be cured but if the virus titer in blood is very high then the capabilities of tamiflu will be very small.
Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs should not be taken unless the doctor is affirmative that the virus entered your body because when you get the antiviral drug before this, your body may develop some kind of tolerance against the drug in case of re-administration with the infection