Posted on 09/28/2006 12:23:12 AM PDT by Republicain
An experiment to reconstruct the deadly 1918 flu virus has given a new insight into how the infection took hold. Scientists discovered a severe immune system reaction was triggered when mice were infected with the recreated virus.
The US team believe the extreme immune response could have provoked the body to begin killing its own cells, making the flu even deadlier.
The study, published in Nature, may aid the hunt for new treatments. The 1918 pandemic took about 50 million lives.
The devastating infection, which is thought to have originated in birds, left young adults worst hit.
Scientists in the US have reconstructed the H1N1 virus in a bid to better understand how it became such an effective killer - and to also bolster knowledge in the face of current H5N1 bird flu threat.
The researchers infected mice with the recreated influenza virus.
Through functional genomic analysis they discovered that the mice's immune systems responded fiercely to the infection and remained active until the animals' deaths several days later.
At the same time, the animals also suffered the severe lung disease that is characteristic of the virus.
Understanding H5N1
Dr John Kash, lead author of the study and assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Washington, said: "What we think is happening is that the host's inflammatory response is being highly activated by the virus, and that response is making the virus much more damaging to the host.
"The host's immune system may be overreacting and killing off too many cells, and that may be a key contributor to what makes this virus more pathogenic."
Dr Christopher Basler, a co-author from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, said: "Our next step is to repeat these experiments, but deconstruct what the immune system is doing so that we can understand why it is reacting so strongly, yet failing to fight the infection."
The researchers said understanding how the virus works would help in fight against influenza.
Dr Basler said: "This could help us develop more targeted therapies to combat pathogenic infections, including different types of influenzas or perhaps avian influenza."
Paul Hunter, professor of health protection from the University of East Anglia, said: "People who have died from the current form of bird flu have died in the same sort of fashion as the people who died during the 1918 pandemic. It is an extraordinarily unpleasant death.
"Clearly the difference between the virus now and the one around in 1918 is that the current one has yet to develop the ability to spread swiftly from person to person.
"It is very important to study the 1918 flu to understand the current avian flu virus."
ping
it took 50 million lives.. and we crap ourselves when 1 or 2 persons out 300 million people dies of the flu... NBC "PANDEMIC: FLU CRISIS" we are rookies
There will be one constant: whatever happens, it will be the fault of the Federal Government, and specifically the fault of Geroge W. Bush.
Every year over 60,000 people die of influenza and pneumonia in the US, yet this hardly ever makes the news. Yet West Nile still makes headline.
ping
Amen. My dad would talk of the pandemic (he never got overs calling it the Spanish flu) and how you'd see so and so walking down the street and two days later you'd be going to his funeral.
Why is it that I get the feeling some time soon one of these researchers at this research-lab will go home from work with the sniffles ... and then be dead in 2 or 3 days.
I wonder about this: Obviously, millions of people survived the epidemic. My parents, their siblings, and all of my grandparents survived the epidemic. Did the epidemic "winnow" those who were susceptible to the worst effects of the virus and leave alive millions who were genetically either not susceptible or less susceptible? [I hope so.]
I am the medical planner on "bird flu" for our military base, population of 12,000. I am reading everything on the "Fort Riley Flu" that I can get my hands on.
My dad started smoking at 10 in 1920. Quit at 50 cold turkey and lived to be 83 .
I sure hope they are careful with that.
Odd thing is, I am probably alive today because of the 1918 epidemic. My grandfather was drafted into the army and would likely have been sent straight to the front in an engineering unit, but he caught the flu at an army base in Iowa, was put in a gymnasium along with a hundred dead bodies, and given up for dead. His brother got a telegram, showed up to collect the body, and discovered he wasn't dead. My grandfather recovered but had heart valve damage and was sent home 4F.
M-O-O-N, that spells trouble.
Great Influenza ping.
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