HIV positive and swine flu: "Reasons to be cautious...no reason to panic"

From POZ & AIDS Meds online, I thought it would be useful to share this "web exclusive", a Q&A about being HIV positive and concerns with the Swine Flu. With all the hysteria, real, level-headed information helps.

The main message? POZ Proclaims, "While there are reasons to be cautious, there’s no reason to panic."

And for those who are HIV positive, what about the interaction of HIV meds and Tamiflu (the main antivirus med that seems effective after Swine Flu has been contracted)?

"Good news. Initial tests suggest that H1N1 is sensitive to two widely available antiviral medications: Relenza (zanamivir) and Tamiflu (oseltamivir). The flu medications Symmetrel (amantadine) and Flumadine (rimantadine) are not effective against this particular strain of influenza. What's more, there is little evidence to suggest that they cannot be safely combined with antiretrovirals (ARVs) used to treat HIV."

For much more extensive questions and answers, visit the POZ article, here.

For everyone else getting caught up in the Swine Flu information overload madness, PLEASE cling on to this bit of information from SFGate.com yesterday:

Public health experts noted that at this point, swine flu is behaving much the same way as a normal seasonal flu in the United States, with those infected getting mostly mild symptoms. So far, six people have been hospitalized with swine flu, most of them with pre-existing medical conditions.

But because the flu appears to be more virulent in Mexico, where about 150 have died, and because humans appear to have little to no natural immunity to this new strain, infectious disease experts said that it's critical to halt, or at least slow down, the spread of the disease now and over the next several months, until a vaccine can be developed.

Also, here's an additional great Q&A from the Body, one of my favorite sites for quality HIV information.