What the approval of the new flu drug Xofluza means for you
A new single-dose treatment gives doctors a novel way to fight influenza infections
There’s a new flu drug on the shelf, the first in 20 years to get a thumbs-up from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
On October 24, the agency approved the use of the new antiviral drug, called baloxavir marboxil and sold under the brand name Xofluza. The drug, already available in Japan, works differently to kill the influenza virus from the other main class of flu antivirals, which includes the drug Tamiflu.
Antiviral drugs can help alleviate symptoms and shorten the flu’s duration, although flu vaccination remains the best way to prevent illness and death caused by the virus. “Prevention is better than treatment in all things and that’s absolutely true for flu,” says infectious disease physician Andrew Pavia of the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City. “So the first message is: Get your flu shot.”