BOISE -- It’s a science experiment only eight pharmacies in the country are trying, and a store in Boise is one of them. Ladd Family Pharmacy wants to better understand the flu and how to treat it.
The primary focus of the study is to see whether pharmacists should be able to screen, diagnose and treat patients with flu-like symptoms.
"This is a great opportunity to be able to culture this virus and look at the epidemiology of it," said pharmacy owner Elaine Ladd. "I want to push the envelope."
The closest pharmacy also doing this cutting-edge study is in Texas.
"So we are going to look at the strains, to see if they are mutating and we're going to look at resistance patterns to see. You know, is Tamiflu effective? Should we be looking at a different agent?" said Ladd.
That's just one benefit that will hopefully come from this study. Another is to see whether a jump start on treating the virus really makes a big difference.
"What we're seeing in the community right now is patients get influenza, and then, if it's not treated it can develop into pneumonia," said Ladd.
To make this study possible Ladd needs people with flu-like symptoms to test. People like Chetan Baxter whose husband and son are sick with the flu.
Baxter sees the benefit of having the early screening, especially since her physician used only symptoms to diagnose her son. Ladd is doing a nasal swab and throat culture to actually test for the virus.
"I absolutely wish I would have known sooner, because we've been, the cough started last week. Had we gotten the jump on it, we'd be less concerned that now we're going into potentially Thanksgiving where we could still be sick," said Baxter.
In the pharmacy, those looking to get tested can be in and out in 20 minutes.
"If I'm sick now then I can take precautions to stay home and get well and not give it to everybody else," said Martha Vandivort who had the flu.
If someone shows up to the pharmacy to be tested, and the tests come back positive, the study then gives Ladd a random variable.
One option is for her to give the patient Tamiflu.
The other would be to refer the patient to a doctor who prescribes Tamiflu.
What that does is it delays the treatment three to four days. That way they can see the difference between immediate treatment compared to a delayed one.
This study is free to the public and will be on going for the next one to two years. So far the pharmacy has screened only a handful of people.
