Officials estimate that since its emergence in early April, the H1N1 flu has infected as many as a million Americans. Its symptoms, which are similar to those of seasonal flu, may include fever, headache, coughing, sneezing, sore throat, and muscle or joint pains, which can last up to a week. A significant number of people who have been infected with the virus have also reported diarrhea and vomiting. Antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza have been found effective at treating and reducing the duration of the illness, usually by a day or two. But in order to be most useful, they must be administered within 12 to 48 hours of symptoms onset. That could be a problem considering that identifying the virus by traditional cell culture can take days, and the rapid detection tests that can provide results in 30 minutes or less fail to identify H1N1 more than half the time, according to a new government report.
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