Swine Flu: Potential Threat to Human Species?

[Evo]

The virus didn't turn out to be that bad. It's thought that the deaths in Mexico were largely attributed to poor medical care and getting care too late, not that the virus was that severe. The fact that cases that were properly treated resulted in the patient recovering quickly seems to support that.

 

[lisab]

I'm not sure if this has already been asked, but guessing by the name of the flu I'm sure it has, if you eat pig products i.e. bacon, or ham, are you more susceptible to getting the swine flu.

I'm kind of paranoid right now as I usually eat a slice of ham or bacon at least twice a week for breakfast.

I heard a CDC scientist say tonight that not one pig has been found to have this virus, anywhere in the world!

So eat your bacon, pork chops, ham, pork roast, or sausage without the slightest worry.

 

[turbo]

I heard a CDC scientist say tonight that not one pig has been found to have this virus, anywhere in the world!

So eat your bacon, pork chops, ham, pork roast, or sausage without the slightest worry.

Is "long pig" a danger? I have a neighbor past her breeding years that may need to be culled.

 

[Ukitake Jyuushirou]

"Genetics and effects


Negative stain electronic microscope image of a reassorted A(H1N1) flu virus
The CDC has confirmed that U.S. cases were found to be made up of genetic elements from four different flu viruses – North American swine influenza, North American avian influenza, human influenza, and swine influenza virus typically found in Asia and Europe – "an unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak#Genetics_and_effects

Interesting, that is unusual. Thanks for the article

 

[Count Iblis]

About how many casualties are expected from the worst case scenario of this disease?

We don't know what a realistic model for a worst case scenario is. In 1918 the flu started in a mild form in spring and went on the decline in the summer. It came back in the fall, killing many people (about 50 million).

But the 1918 flu pandemic may not be the worst case scenario. There are people who claim that the Black Death epidemics of the middle ages were not caused by bubonic plage as most scientist believe, but rather by some virus. Black Death killed 10 to 20 percent of the World's population, so if that were to happen again we are looking at more than a billion deaths.

Even if swine flu turns out to be a pandemic without causing large number of deaths, we are still not safe. The virus could mix with other virusses and then some very deadly virus could arise. Pandemic virusses typically infect about 30% of the World's population, so there is a reasonable chance that someone who is infected with bird flu will also be infected with swine flu. Or perhaps someone in Congo will get Ebola and swine flu. Thing is that in recent decades people are more exposed to rare but deadly virusses like Ebola.

Another factor is that the genetic variation of our species is extremely small compared to other animals. Homo Sapiens went through a population bottleneck about 70,000 years ago. Since the last century the World's population has grown exponentially. There are now 6.5 billion people who are genetically very similar to each other. It could be that this combination of the lack of genetic variation and large population size is unstable in the sense that it would allow a deadly virus to mutate into an even more deadly form.

If you have a small population, then a virus can only spread a few generations before it will have infected everyone (or the entire fraction of the population that is genetically susceptible to the virus). In case of a large population the virus has more generations to go before it will have infected everyone who is susceptible to the virus. Also if everyone in the population is genetically similar then a large fraction of the population can be infected. A new virus can thus go on infecting people who haven't been infected before. It can mutate for many generations and therefore it has more opportunity to mutate into a more deadly form.

 

[lisab]

Is "long pig" a danger? I have a neighbor past her breeding years that may need to be culled.

...hey, there are a lot of PF sisters who are past our breeding years !

 

[DaveC426913]

...hey, there are a lot of PF sisters who are past our breeding years !

I for one will be happy to to make an attempt to prove that wrong. One at a time or in groups.

 

[The_Absolute]

How long do pandemics usually last before they die out?

 

[jreelawg]

"WASHINGTON – A security aide helping with arrangements during President Barack Obama's recent trip to Mexico became sick with flu-like symptoms and three members of his family later contracted probable swine flu, the White House said Thursday."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_swine_flu;_ylt=ArTgnuu.3SbMA_ZJJ2oPAtYDW7oF

 

[Evo]

We don't know what a realistic model for a worst case scenario is.

I think it's time to put the gloom and doom to bed, it's just not happening.

The medical care available to the public in 1918 is like the dark ages in comparison to what we have now.

It's very likely that other widespread diseases such as TB played an important role in deaths back then.

The flu doesn't kill, it's secondary infections such as pneumonia that kill, and treated early, the prognosis is very good.

 

[Phrak]

I think it's time to put the gloom and doom to bed, it's just not happening.

It looks like we have been taken-in, for the most part, by the hype from Mexican government officials et al, and the media who stands to gain by taking them at face value.

I should have known better. Mexico is a country mired in poverty by institutions that encourage corruption and fraud (more so than others).

Ignoring the Mexican numbers, having no objective scientific value, the WHO's April 30th update places fatalities vs. confirmed cases at 1 to 160. Gestation could up the ratio somewhat. More attention to a sick toddler (the one fatality) could reduce it.

 

[atyy]

I think it's time to put the gloom and doom to bed, it's just not happening.

The medical care available to the public in 1918 is like the dark ages in comparison to what we have now.

It's very likely that other widespread diseases such as TB played an important role in deaths back then.

The flu doesn't kill, it's secondary infections such as pneumonia that kill, and treated early, the prognosis is very good.

What was SARS?

 

[Borek]

Black Death killed 10 to 20 percent of the World's population, so if that were to happen again we are looking at more than a billion deaths.

What a relief to the overcrowded Earth.

 

[Count Iblis]

I think it's time to put the gloom and doom to bed, it's just not happening

The smart thing to do would be to make a list of potential threats that could do serious damage to our civilization. Then look at the probabilities of these threats. If there are threats with a reasonable high probability we should look at how we could best pre-emt such a threat.


Instead, what we have been doing in the last few years is to use play the "disaster card" to settle disputes we have been involved with. Example: We didn't like Saddam (for good reasons) but we played the "potential disaster card" by exaggerating the WMD threat to moblize support for a military invasion and ended up spending something of the order of a trillion dollars on Iraq.


I think also that the problems now in Afghanistan should be solved, but we shouldn't pretend that terrorists from there could somehow deal a blow to our civilization. Nevertheless spending many billions there is something that has broad consensus.


A flu pandemic is different in that it could be a real threat to our civilization. If we were to make a list of disasters that are theoretically capable of killing billions, then things like asteroid impacts, supervolcano eruptions, nearby gamma ray bursts etc. etc. would be on that list as well as a pandemic. But a pandemic has a far larger probability of happening than these other disasters.


So, it seems to me that we should have spend a few bilions to expand the production capacity we have to make vaccines. We should have aimed for the capacity to produce 6.5 billion vaccines in one or two month's time.

 

[Evo]

So, it seems to me that we should have spend a few bilions to expand the production capacity we have to make vaccines. We should have aimed for the capacity to produce 6.5 billion vaccines in one or two month's time.

Because of how the virus mutates, you cannot make large batches of vaccine ahead of time because we don't know what will be needed. And then you've got nuts out there telling people that vaccinations and immunizations should be abolished.

 

[turbo]

Because of how the virus mutates, you cannot make large batches of vaccine ahead of time because we don't know what will be needed. And then you've got nuts out there telling people that vaccinations and immunizations should be abolished.

Also, because the mutation rate out-paces vaccine production, any vaccine that is produced and stockpiled for the upcoming flu season has a good chance of being partially or totally ineffective against next winters' strains.

 

[ViewsofMars]

The new influenza virus A(H1N1)

I've been reading the latest study (May 1, 2009) published in PLoS Medicine:Hedging against Antiviral Resistance during the Next Influenza Pandemic Using Small Stockpiles of an Alternative Chemotherapy by Joseph T. Wu, Gabriel M. Leung, Marc Lipsitch, Ben S. Cooper, and Steven Riley.

Has anyone else read it?

 

[Moridin]

It is not just secondary infections that kill people who have been infected by influenza; the influenza can cause an uncontrolled immune response that damages the body, causing organ failure and the like (cytokine storm). This is thought to be a factor in the demographics of casualties in the 1918 pandemic as well as with the H5N1 strain.

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/04/swine_flu_and_deaths_in_health.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...4/26/AR2009042602827.html?sid=ST2009042602901

 

[ibnsos]

Because of how the virus mutates, you cannot make large batches of vaccine ahead of time because we don't know what will be needed. And then you've got nuts out there telling people that vaccinations and immunizations should be abolished.

He didn't say make batches ahead of time. What he is talking about is increasing the ability to make vaccines in huge batches quickly.

 

[Evo]

He didn't say make batches ahead of time. What he is talking about is increasing the ability to make vaccines in huge batches quickly.

It takes time to develop a vaccine that is effective against a new strain. It's not as easy as it sounds to just have vast resources lying idle in case you have a once a century epidemic.

 

[Evo]

It is not just secondary infections that kill people who have been infected by influenza; the influenza can cause an uncontrolled immune response that damages the body, causing organ failure and the like (cytokine storm). This is thought to be a factor in the demographics of casualties in the 1918 pandemic as well as with the H5N1 strain.

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/04/swine_flu_and_deaths_in_health.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...4/26/AR2009042602827.html?sid=ST2009042602901

Actually, your link to the blog seems to say no to the anecdotal "cytokine storm" from the Washington Post. Are you sure you posted to the right thing?

So, are we seeing this with the reassortant swine H1N1 virus, or should we expect to find that it causes this? Is this why reportedly many of the deaths to date are in the "young and healthy"? Right now, we simply don't know. As I mentioned yesterday, the data from Mexico (from media reports, at least) are sparse, and only a handful of cases have been confirmed to be caused by the novel swine flu virus. This makes attempts to extrapolate to any larger trends a risky and imprecise endeavor, and the old adage certainly applies: garbage in, garbage out. So right now (again, from media-reported data), we don't know for sure that there really is a higher number of "young and healthy" dying from this virus than we would expect to see--so whether this trend even exists is a big question mark.

However, even if we do see an excess of deaths in that middle age group, there could be other reasons besides the "cytokine storm." Perhaps this group has exposures that have made them more likely to contract the virus than other age groups, so the greater number of deaths is simply a result of a greater number of exposed individuals. Perhaps they were less likely to have been vaccinated in recent years, meaning they had no cross-protective immunity. (This also is a big question mark, as we don't know, even in vaccinated individuals, that any immunity to human H1N1 viruses would confer any protection). Perhaps they've simply been more likely to be noticed in this outbreak, and thus their cases have received more attention and were more likely to have been worked up (as far as obtaining a culture, etc.) than those in the typical influenza risk groups. There are just too many unknowns right now to address these questions, but certainly they will be investigated as more surveillance data is collected.

 

[jreelawg]

"1976 U.S. outbreak
Main article: 1976 swine flu outbreak
On February 5, 1976, in the United States an army recruit at Fort Dix said he felt tired and weak. He died the next day and four of his fellow soldiers were later hospitalized. Two weeks after his death, health officials announced that the cause of death was a new strain of swine flu. The strain, a variant of H1N1, is known as A/New Jersey/1976 (H1N1). It was detected only from January 19 to February 9 and did not spread beyond Fort Dix.[52]President Ford receives swine flu vaccination
This new strain appeared to be closely related to the strain involved in the 1918 flu pandemic. Moreover, the ensuing increased surveillance uncovered another strain in circulation in the U.S.: A/Victoria/75 (H3N2) spread simultaneously, also caused illness, and persisted until March.[52] Alarmed public-health officials decided action must be taken to head off another major pandemic, and urged President Gerald Ford that every person in the U.S. be vaccinated for the disease.[53]
The vaccination program was plagued by delays and public relations problems.[54] On October 1, 1976, the immunization program began and by October 11, approximately 40 million people, or about 24% of the population, had received swine flu immunizations. That same day, three senior citizens died soon after receiving their swine flu shots and there was a media outcry linking the deaths to the immunizations, despite the lack of positive proof. According to science writer Patrick Di Justo, however, by the time the truth was known — that the deaths were not proven to be related to the vaccine — it was too late. "The government had long feared mass panic about swine flu — now they feared mass panic about the swine flu vaccinations." This became a strong setback to the program.[21]
There were reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing neuromuscular disorder, affecting some people who had received swine flu immunizations. This syndrome is a rare side-effect of modern influenza vaccines, with an incidence of about one case per million vaccinations.[55] As a result, Di Justo writes that "the public refused to trust a government-operated health program that killed old people and crippled young people." In total, less than 33 percent of the population had been immunized by the end of 1976. The National Influenza Immunization Program was effectively halted on Dec. 16.
Overall, about 500 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), resulting in death from severe pulmonary complications for 25 people, which, according to Dr. P. Haber, were probably caused by an immunopathological reaction to the 1976 vaccine. Other influenza vaccines have not been linked to GBS, though caution is advised for certain individuals, particularly those with a history of GBS.[56][57] Still, as observed by a participant in the immunization program, the vaccine killed more Americans than the disease did.[58]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza#1976_U.S._outbreak

What is the point in a vaccine if the virus isn't likely to kill you. How many American deaths so far? Besides being infected by the virus naturally is almost the same thing as getting the vaccine isn't it?

The worst and widest spread H1N1 virus, spanish flu, only effected an estimated 28% of the U.S. population. So that means that someone taking a vaccine would likely not even have ever been infected. On top of that, by the time the vaccines were ready, many people out of the potential 28% or so would have already been infected. And, even in 76 where a huge effort was made to vaccinate the public, only 24% of the population were vaccinated. How many of the 24% vaccinated do you think would have been otherwise infected?

 

[ViewsofMars]

The new influenza virus A(H1N1) - Swine Flu

As of today (May 1, 2009) you can review the GenBank sequences for the *new* 2009 A(H1N1) influenza outbreak that has been taken from the NIAID Influenza Genome Sequencing Project! Yippee! The National Center for Biotechnology Information is definitely a great resource for researchers, whereas in past decades we didn't have the technology.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/FLU/SwineFlu.html

I hope someone will be able to respond to my last question on the previous page. I would enjoy discussing it with a professional.

Thanks you.

p.s. I'll be back on Monday. Have a great weekend everyone.
Keep a smile on your face. Never give up on hoping for the best in life.

 

[jreelawg]

I'm not a professional, but to me it sounds like they are worried that the virus will mutate and become resistant to antivirals at some point. The basic idea is to start using one drug, and save the other for later. The two effective drugs are relenza and tamiflu.

 

[Count Iblis]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=av4wgnUyWfhI&refer=uk"

New York health officials will test for swine flu only in patients with a severe illness or where there may be a cluster of cases, said the New York City health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, at a news conference today. All of the 49 confirmed cases and more than 1,000 likely infected New Yorkers have had mild symptoms similar to those of seasonal flu, he said.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Does exposure to this strain of the virus provide protection against variants of the strain that we can expect to see in the future; and others that may already exist?

 

[turbo]

Does exposure to this strain of the virus provide protection against variants of the strain that we can expect to see in the future; and others that may already exist?

It's an interesting dynamic. If you are exposed to a flu virus at the beginning of the next flu season, and suffer a mild case of the flu (as most people have experienced so far), your protection will be far more up-to-date than anybody who receives a vaccine at about that time that was developed starting today. It can take 3-4 months to work up a vaccine, and another 3-4 months or more before enough of the vaccine can be produced to get enough doses to treat the at-risk population in the US. By the time next fall comes around, if the flu has not gotten deadly, you might be better off to contract it and suffer a mild case of it than to get vaccinated.

 

[jreelawg]

Did anyone here of this?

"2009 avian flu contamination
The Austrian pharmaceutical firm, Baxter International, sent a flu vaccine, which it had accidentally contaminated with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, for testing in the Czech Republic, a report said Tuesday [3/3/2009]. The Austrian firm Baxter said it contaminated the vaccine with the dangerous virus by accident, likely during packaging in Austria, the Mlada Fronta Dnes daily reported, citing Baxter's representative. Baxter shipped the infected vaccine to the Czech biomedical firm Biotest for testing on ferrets in late January. None of Biotest's employees, who had been exposed to the highly pathogenic virus for a week, contracted the disease. According to the World Health Organization figures, the bird flu has killed 254 people, mostly in Asia and Africa, including four deaths reported in Turkey. The Czech Republic's chief epidemiologist Michael Vit said that it was unclear whether the Biotest workers had been under a high risk of infection as the Czech authorities did not know how much virus the vaccine contained. Officials, however, hinted that the situation could have been serious. "Thank God it did not spread," Vit said. The Czech company managed to prevent the virus from spreading outside the lab to poultry breeds, which would have had to be culled in such an event. "If it were to spread to poultry farms it would have caused serious problems," said Josef Duben, a spokesman for the Czech State Veterinary Administration. The exposed employees were given Tamiflu medicine and have been regularly tested, Vit said. The infected ferrets had to be culled and the laboratory, which is located 70 kilometres east of the Czech capital Prague, was disinfected. [6][7] [8]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baxter_International

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&refer=science&sid=aTo3LbhcA75I

This just goes to show how easy vaccine makers can screw up and risk a pandemic. That sounds like a pretty boneheaded mistake.

And this is the corporation who is going to manufacture the worlds swine bird man flu vaccine.

"...Still, around 60% of humans known to have been infected with the current Asian strain of HPAI A(H5N1) have died from it, and H5N1 may mutate or reassort into a strain capable of efficient human-to-human transmission. In 2003, world-renowned virologist Robert Webster published an article titled "The world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic that could kill a large fraction of the human population" in American Scientist. He called for adequate resources to fight what he sees as a major world threat to possibly billions of lives.[6] On September 29, 2005, David Nabarro, the newly-appointed Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, warned the world that an outbreak of avian influenza could kill anywhere between 5 million and 150 million people.[7] Experts have identified key events (creating new clades, infecting new species, spreading to new areas) marking the progression of an avian flu virus towards becoming pandemic, and many of those key events have occurred more rapidly than expected."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1#Overview

 

[jreelawg]

"At least one U.S. company has jumped in early to start evaluating the strain, potentially in order to develop a vaccine. Illinois-based Baxter International Inc. requested virus samples from the World Health Organization and expects to obtain them in the next few days, company spokesman Chris Bona said."

"He said Baxter has a special system to "rapidly produce" flu vaccines and potentially could develop one in half the time it normally takes -- about 26 weeks."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/30/demand-new-flu-vaccine-overwhelm-manufacturers/

Hopefully they don't accidentally contaminate it with h5n1!

 

[Moridin]

The CDC has about 6 billion dollars in its annual budget. The annual budget for the military is about 600 billion or so. Gives some perspective, I think.

 

[jim mcnamara]

There is a swirl of partial information out there in the blogosphere.

Evolution of Infectious Disease by Paul W. Ewald (1996)

presents a good model for understanding what the CDC and epidemiologists fear can happen/not happen with H1N5. Influenza can change virulence, change mode or rapidity of infection as it infects new hosts (and so on) - primarily as it moves from host to host individuals in a population.

Modern populations are very mobile, so it may be reasonable to infer that some changes in the virus' "pattern of behavior" will surface quickly. It is completely impossible to predict what the changes will be. The only sure thing is that if spread of the disease is restricted, the probability of these changes occurring is reduced.

 

[Red Rum]

Lord God, I can't believe the hysteria this is causing. Evo has made the very good point that n 1918, levels of medical care and understanding of viral infections were both poor. Most people died not from the flu but from complications resulting from secondary bacterial infections, this was in the days before antibiotics were available. Get a grip!

 

[hypatia]

Amen

 

[Count Iblis]

Lord God, I can't believe the hysteria this is causing. Evo has made the very good point that n 1918, levels of medical care and understanding of viral infections were both poor. Most people died not from the flu but from complications resulting from secondary bacterial infections, this was in the days before antibiotics were available. Get a grip!

Then why does H5N1 kill 50% of the people it infects in this day and age? And how come SARS was so dangerous?

 

[Moridin]

Lord God, I can't believe the hysteria this is causing. Evo has made the very good point that n 1918, levels of medical care and understanding of viral infections were both poor. Most people died not from the flu but from complications resulting from secondary bacterial infections, this was in the days before antibiotics were available. Get a grip!

This faith is deeply misplaced. Most people from seasonal influenza may die from secondary infections, but this is not necessary the case for pandemic influenza. We are facing things like antibiotic resistant bacteria and pandemic influenza that we cannot at this point in time, handle.