Relenza was invented in Australia and it has no side effects. In fact you could eat a kilogram of it and suffer no more than an excess of sugar. Relenza is based on a sugar molecule with a few bits added that inhibits the Neuraminidase enzyme of all flu viruses. The Flu virus uses Neuraminidase to escape any cell it infects. Without it, it is stuck and your immune system does the rest.
Tamiflu is a 'me too drug' based on a Benzene molecule. The metabolic break down products of Tamiflu is what gives all the nasty side effects.
Flu virus can very quickly mutate to evade Tamiflu as it has a higher binding constant than the natural target molecule. It is almost impossible for the flu virus to evade Relenza as the binding constant is almost identical to the target molecule of Neuraminidase.
The real fear the authorities have is that we do not have any immunity in our human population to this so called swine flu as we have not been exposed to its combination of genes that code for the proteins that the immune system responds to.
The Spanish flu of 1918 was mild at first and the next year it killed 50 million people.
How do I know this? I worked in the laboratory that elucidated the three dimensional molecular structure of flu neuraminidase. It is this structure that led to the design of the molecule we now call Relenza. And later Tamiflu.
Just hope you get this flu before it becomes very nasty or if it does, at the first sign of symptoms take Relenza or Tamiflu if it still works.
The best we can hope for that this will fade out like all the usual flu's. We are in deep trouble if it becomes more virulent and a killer. The 1918 flu had a death rate of only 2%.
By all means tell jokes, but dont die from coughing and laughter!
If you are really interested here is a 12MB pdf that explains all
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...1&blobtype=pdf
Bert