Children treated with influenza antivirals within 48 hours of their first symptoms were 81 percent less likely to require hospital care than children treated later or not at all, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics. The protective association held among children aged 5 and younger, the group that carries the heaviest flu hospitalization burden.
The timing is the point, and it arrives weeks before flu season. The finding is about how quickly treatment starts, not whether a drug exists, which makes it directly relevant to a decision parents make in the first day or two of a child's illness.
