Overview

• Researchers analyzed de-identified records of 692,295 Tennessee Medicaid enrollees ages 5 to 17 from July 2016 to June 2020 and identified 1,230 serious neurologic and psychiatric events.
• Children with flu experienced higher rates of neuropsychiatric complications than uninfected peers regardless of oseltamivir treatment.
• Oseltamivir therapy during flu episodes was linked to about a 50 percent reduction in serious events including seizures, altered mental status and hallucinations.
• Prophylactic oseltamivir in children without flu did not increase neuropsychiatric event rates compared with those who were neither infected nor treated.
• Investigators say the findings resolve long-standing safety concerns about oseltamivir and reinforce American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for early antiviral use in pediatric flu