just reading some stuff and here's some snips of info
"At this point, the virus is more like regular influenza and doesn't show signs of changing," said Peter Palese, professor and chair of microbiology at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York and an expert on the 1918 strain.
As scientists unravel the genetic makeup of swine flu strains collected in Mexico, the U.S. and New Zealand, they are relieved to find differences between the 1918 strain and the current strain that suggest a lower potential for severe illness. Some experts suggest the virus may be mutating into a less dangerous form as it spreads.
"It might be losing its steam," said Bellur Prabhakar, professor and head of microbiology and immunology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "What we're seeing in the United States has us hoping that the pandemic may not be as bad."
So far, while swine flu appears to spread faster and easier than avian flu, it has been dramatically less deadly.
Back in 1976, the administration of then-president Gerald Ford, on the advice of the CDC, initiated a mass vaccination program, inoculating more than 43 million people (25 percent of the population). But that undertaking resulted in serious side effects, most notably an estimated 500 cases of a rare condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome, including 25 related deaths.
The debacle -- where vaccination actually caused more trouble than the flu itself -- forced the resignation of the director of the CDC.
This time around, "it looks like the CDC is evaluating that lesson very carefully," Hsu remarked. "They've been watching very carefully and evaluating the investment of a vaccine."
Given the time in which they lived and the resources available, health officials responded relatively quickly to the 1976 version of swine flu, said DiFerdinando, who was acting commissioner of health for New Jersey during another public health emergency, the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Still, the current outbreak also illustrates how far public health responses have progressed since 1976, Lillibridge said.
The CDC's rapid and constantly updated response to the outbreak was first in evidence during the 2003 SARS outbreak, and "it's happening again here in 2009," he said
"The severity depends on whether [and how] the genotype of the virus reassorts itself," Horovitz added. The reassortment may be so minimal as to make no clinical difference, or it could assert itself in entirely new ways."
But a vaccine will likely be ready by the time a second wave hits, Ostrosky noted, and the world is prepared in other ways as well.
"We have completely sequenced the genome of the virus, and it shows low virulence at this point. We know about it. We can prepare," he said. "If nothing else, this has been an extraordinary exercise in preparation."
1. Is the swine flu outbreak in the United States winding down?
Not yet. Health officials expect to see more cases.
However, there are two reasons to think the 2009 H1N1 outbreak will wind down in the coming weeks. First, cases of influenza tend to dwindle when the weather gets warmer. Second, the 2009 H1N1 virus outbreak in Mexico has reached its peak, and numbers there are going down. It is expected that same pattern could happen in the United States.
But many experts believe it's highly unlikely there would be an outbreak anything like 1918. First of all, scientists have a much better understanding of infectious diseases, and health care has improved greatly since 1918. Secondly, the 2009 H1N1 lacks a gene that is present in highly virulent flu viruses, such as the one in 1918.
"I don't think this virus has what it takes to become a major problem," says Peter Palese, chairman of the department of microbiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Johns Hopkins' Pekosz adds that people remember the horrific 1918 flu season, but often forget that the two other flu outbreaks caused by new viruses, the ones in 1957 and 1968, were far more mild.
just an article... btw its not just talking about the swine flu
Scientists learn why the flu may turn deadly
May 4th, 2009 As the swine flu continues its global spread, researchers from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have discovered important clues about why influenza is more severe in some people than it is in others.
In their research study published online in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, the scientists show that the influenza virus can actually paralyze the immune systems of otherwise healthy individuals, leading to severe secondary bacterial infections, such as pneumonia. Furthermore, this immunological paralysis can be long-lived, which is important to know when developing treatment strategies to combat the virus.
According to Kathleen Sullivan, M.D., Ph.D., the senior researcher involved in the study and Chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, "We have a very limited understanding of why some people who get influenza simply have a bad cold and other people become very sick and even die. The results of this study give us a much better sense of the mechanisms underlying bacterial infections arising on top of the viral infection."
Sullivan and colleagues recruited pediatric patients with severe influenza and examined the level of cytokines, which serve as the first line initiators of immune response, in the blood plasma. Although they found elevated levels of cytokines, they also found a decreased response of toll-like receptors, which activate immune cell responses as a result of invading microbes. This suggests that the diminished response of these receptors may be responsible for the paralysis of the immune system, leading to secondary bacterial infections.
The influenza patients were compared with patients with moderate influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and a control group of healthy individuals. The immune paralysis appeared to be specifically a result of influenza infection and was not seen in patients with respiratory syncytial virus. This process might explain why one quarter of children who die from influenza, die from a bacterial infection occurring on top of the virus.
"Despite major medical advances since the devastating flu outbreak of 1918 and 1919, influenza virus infection remains a very serious threat," said John Wherry, Ph.D., Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, "and the current swine flu outbreak is a grim reminder of this fact. The work by Dr. Sullivan and colleagues brings us a step closer to understanding exactly what goes wrong in some people who get the flu, so, ultimately, physicians can develop more effective treatment strategies."
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