Dr. Charles van der Horst, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at UNC, says Lillian Chason, the UNC student in critical condition with swine flu, has been receiving a new form of treatment.

Relenza, or properly known as Zanamivir, is usually inhaled for treating and preventing influenza. Dr. van der Horst and colleague Christopher Hurt, from UNC’s Center for Infectious Diseases, are each leading the first studies of medications for IV treatment of influenza.

Dr. van der Horst says Chason’s case is a good example for why IV treatment for the flu, whether seasonal or H1N1, is over due. The UNC freshman is on a ventilator and cannot be orally administered Tamiflu and can’t inhale the aerosolized Relenza.

To receive the treatment intravenously, a patient has to be hospitalized with the flu for at least five days. Dr. van der Horst’s study is open to pregnant women and patients on ventilators, like Chason.

Novel H1N1 hasn’t shown the resistance to Relenza as it has with Tamiflu. Last month, three people infected with a mutation of H1N1 that is resistant to Tamiflu died at Duke University Hospital.