Swine Flu Udpate II
(adding an article to the two posted yesterday)
Here are excerpts from three recent articles on swine flu. The first two discuss why young adults may be particularly vulnerable. The third article asks the question: what if the swine flu virus meets the bird flu virus, and the genetic material mix – might we end up with a recombinant killer as contagious as swine flu and as deadly as bird flu? – Ilene
Swine Flu Virus Lacks Killer Traits of 1918 Pandemic, Bird Flu
By Marilyn Chase and John Lauerman, Bloomberg:
The swine flu virus so far lacks the killer traits of the 1918 Spanish pandemic or the bird flu fatal to half those it infects, American scientists said.
The genetic blueprint of the new H1N1 virus sweeping the globe is “good news,” Anne Schuchat, interim deputy director for science and public health of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said today. Swine flu, now in 29 countries, may yet exchange genetic material with other viruses and mutate into something worse, Schuchat told reporters in a conference call from Atlanta.
As swine flu spreads, its symptoms have been less severe than Mexico’s first fatalities suggested. That could change, Schuchat said. How the virus behaves as the Southern Hemisphere flu season begins, and whether it comes roaring back in the U.S. in a nastier form later, depends in part on whether its traits hold steady, mutate, or mingle with the deadly H5N1 bird flu circulating in Asia, Schuchat said.
“The good news so far is that the virulence markers for the 1918 and H5N1 influenza viruses do not appear in the H1N1 strain,” Schuchat said. “What we don’t know is whether there may be other virulence markers. Remember the first wave of the 1918 virus was mild and the next wave was devastating.”…
Scientists have proposed that some deaths from flu are brought on in part by an extreme immune response, often called a “cytokine storm,” that occurs when the immune systems of young, robust individuals overreact to infections. About 56 percent of people who died from flu in Mexico showed signs of a “hyper-immune reaction” according to health ministry. The ministry didn’t give details…
More here.
Swine Flu Probers Ask Why Young Adult Mexicans Died So Swiftly
By John Lauerman, Bloomberg:
Swine flu investigators in Mexico are trying to understand why some young adults died rapidly from influenza infections that usually kill people who are very young or very old.
While most of Mexico’s 45 confirmed deaths occurred in people with other health conditions that made them vulnerable, swine flu also killed a “limited number” of young, previously healthy adults and needs more investigation, said Sylvie Briand, acting director of the World Health Organization’s global influenza program in Geneva, in a conference call with reporters today. The Spanish flu of 1918 that killed an estimated 50 million people in the world’s deadliest recorded pandemic also hit healthy young adults with serious consequences, experts have said. Scientists are reviewing the records of the young, healthy patients in Mexico to see whether their care or other health conditions might have factored into the deaths, Briand said…
WHO hasn’t seen sustained, person-to-person spread of the disease outside North America, so the agency’s pandemic alert will remain at phase 5…
The spread of the disease and its severity, particularly in healthy people, will play a role in determining the need for vaccine, WHO officials have said. A WHO panel will meet May 14 to decide whether drugmakers should begin producing hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine against the new illness…
Full article here.
Top flu expert warns of a swine flu-bird flu mix
By Margie Mason, AP Medical Writer
Bird flu kills more than 60 percent of its human victims, but doesn’t easily pass from person to person. Swine flu can be spread with a sneeze or handshake, but kills only a small fraction of the people it infects.
So what happens if they mix?
This is the scenario that has some scientists worried: The two viruses meet — possibly in Asia, where bird flu is endemic — and combine into a new bug that is both highly contagious and lethal and can spread around the world.
Scientists are unsure how likely this possibility is, but note that the new swine flu strain — a never-before-seen mixture of pig, human and bird viruses — has shown itself to be especially adept at snatching evolutionarily advantageous genetic material from other flu viruses.
"This particular virus seems to have this unique ability to pick up other genes," said leading virologist Dr. Robert Webster, whose team discovered an ancestor of the current flu virus at a North Carolina pig farm in 1998…
Malik Peiris, a flu expert at Hong Kong University, said the more immediate worry is that swine flu will mix with regular flu viruses, as flu season begins in the Southern Hemisphere. It is unclear what such a combination would produce…
Full article here.
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