When I say, Youve got forty eight hours dont get me all wrong. These forty eight hours refers to the time that you should act when you show up with the symptoms of bird flu. Now that you would like to know what bird flu is; Ill have to go back a bit on the details. Bird flu is a disease given to birds, cats, other species of animals and also humans by the virus strain H5N1. This causes the influenza of type A. The types of Influenza are the type A influenza, the type B influenza and the type C influenza. The type B and type C influenza are not considered to be that dangerous as they show up only in some species and have very little symptoms in human beings. Type A influenza is the most dangerous among the influenzas and they have caused problems of varying proportions like the epidemic of 1918 which is reported to have caused the death of about 20 million people around the world.

The viruses that cause these problems are the H and the N strains of the virus. The H and the N stands for hem agglutinin and Neuramidase respectively. Now there are sixteen strains of the virus of the H form and nine strains of the virus in the N form. A combination of these two strains would alone create up to two hundred and fifty six strains of the virus. Not all strains are considered dangerous. They mutate in to a new form as and when they get in to a host body. The form that accounted for the epidemic of 1918 was the H1N1 strain.

Now the H5N1 strain is causing problems to the human population and the bird population. This strain is also called as the avian strain. This strain of the virus jumps from the bird or an animal host on to the human beings. When they infect the human beings the human beings show up a variety of symptoms. The symptoms of influenza are it starts of with a sore throat with a follow up of body pain. You may experience high fever and dizziness. This is when you may consult your doctor. If you have been diagnosed with bird flu after studying where you have been exposed and your required sample tests, you will be started on the drug.

For the drug Tamiflu to give you full effect it should be diagnosed within forty eight hours of you showing up the symptoms. This has prompted the caption in the first line. Any way starting off with Tamiflu is not the end of your problems. You got to follow the required dosages of the medication.

Tamiflu comes in a suspension form of the medicine and a capsule form of the medicine. The capsule form of the medicine contains seventy five grams of the active drug. If you are having the influenza in the first case you are told to take one capsule of seventy five grams in the morning and one capsule of seventy five grams in the evenings. You are required to follow this routine for a period of five days. If you have been diagnosed with a problem for the kidneys and are undergoing treatment for the same, then you should take only one tablet a day. The above dosage that I have given you is for adults, adults over the age of thirteen.

For children the dosage is a bit different. For children you are supposed to give the medicine which is available in the suspension form. The amount to be administered is pre-calculated by the weight of the child. For children who are less than 33 pounds the recommended dosage is thirty milligram. For children weighing between thirty three pounds to forty pounds the dosages is forty five milligrams. For children in the weight group of 51 to 88 pounds the dosage is sixty milligrams. And for children weighing above 88 pounds the dosage is 75 milligrams.