Posted on 07/13/2009 11:15:14 AM PDT by AngieGal
The new H1N1 influenza virus bears a disturbing resemblance to the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, with a greater ability to infect the lungs than common seasonal flu viruses, researchers reported on Monday.
Tests in several animals confirmed other studies that have shown the new swine flu strain can spread beyond the upper respiratory tract to go deep into the lungs — making it more likely to cause pneumonia, the international team said.
In addition, they found that people who survived the 1918 pandemic seem to have extra immune protection against the virus, again confirming the work of other researchers.
"When we conducted the experiments in ferrets and monkeys, the seasonal virus did not replicate in the lungs," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, who led the study.
The H1N1 virus replicates significantly better in the lungs."
The new swine flu virus has caused the first pandemic of the 21st century, infecting more than a million people, according to estimates, and killing at least 500. The World Health Organization says it is causing mostly moderate disease but Kawaoka said that does not mean it is like seasonal flu.
"There is a misunderstanding about this virus," he said in a statement. "There is clear evidence the virus is different than seasonal influenza."
Writing in the journal Nature, Kawaoka and colleagues noted that the ability to infect the lungs is a characteristic of other pandemic viruses, especially the 1918 virus, which is estimated to have killed between 40 million and 100 million people.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Adding to that, was in 1918 there were soldiers coming and going on on crowded troops and rail cars bringing all sort of bugs with them. And in 1918 there was no such thing as Penicillin which would combat the infections that killed most of the people.
I’m still not taking the vaccine.
Another mass pandemic will not be flu, but another vector no one will see coming...
Unfortunately, the people who died in 1918 either died from Cytokine Storms or from viral pneumonia. Penicillin would not have, nor any other antibiotic, had any effect on either of those conditions.
The Cytokine storm essentially is your own body's immune system going into a kind of overdrive, producing an physiological environment where you drown in your own fluids.
There are two kinds of pneumonia, viral and bacterial. Antibiotics are an effective therapeutic treatment for bacterial infections, but are completely ineffective against viral infections.
Penicillin would have been useless against a viral infection anyway....
It is a curious fact that the vicitms of the 1918 pandemic in the US were exhumed a short few years ago, to study that disease, and now a flu disturbingly similar to that killer has surfaced in the world populations.
I won’t either. In fact, I’ve never had a flu shot. I have however had a pneumonia shot. Don’t know how well it will work should the worst befall me, but I sure hope it works well. There’s just something about those flu shots that don’t seem right to me.....
Vaccine to help prevent pneumonia. I think it protects against 4 types if I remember right. This past winter was the first in 5 years I didn’t get pneumonia so I guess it works.
I know that antibx don’t work on viruses, but tried to make the point that people’s living circumstances can affect their clinical outcome. I may become sick with the swine flu virus, but I don’t think I am going to die from it due to my living environment and my access to the vaccine. I could be totally wrong on this. Check in next fall when it’s supposed to get ugly.
Having said that, although this particular strain of H1N1 in our current pandemic doesn't seem to have the lethality of 1918, it doesn't mean it can't mutate and become much more virulent (although it's pretty virulent now) and more lethal. Also, if the lethality increases, our own medical system would become quickly overrun with diseased patients and would be unable to cope with a truly lethal disease. There's only so many ventilators in the country.
Lastly, although medicines have become exponentially more effective since 1918, there still isn't a cure, or an effective treatment for a cytokine storm. In fact, it's still not entirely clear how this phenomenon actually works or what specifically triggers it. I think that this is what worries virologists today.
It was bacteria, not the the flu virus itself that caused nearly all deaths in the 1918 flu. Secondary bacterial infections, especially pneumococcus and staph. All treatable today with antibiotics.
You said — And in 1918 there was no such thing as Penicillin which would combat the infections that killed most of the people.
—
I don’t know about that. It doesn’t seem to me, that if that 1918 flu virus took hold again, that it would be easily handled as some might think.
My grandmother was telling me that people were dropping like flies in the street, which I thought was colorful language, until I found out years later that they were. People would be showing no symptoms in the morning and later in the day would be dead. People were walking on the streets and dropping dead. There were body carts sent around to pick up dead bodies in the streets (we’re talking about here).
She was also telling me that all her neighbors had dead kids from it. But, fortunately for our family, we didn’t have any.
When people are dropping like flies in the street, feeling fine in the morning and dead by the end of the day, that doesn’t give a lot of time to react. And thus, that kind of process would cause a lot of deaths.
I think that’s why many are pushing for widespread vaccinations. There’s no time to react and do something about it after the fact of developing the symptoms, if it’s like it was in 1918.
It was Secondary bacterial infections, especially pneumococcus and staph that caused nearly all deaths in the 1918 flu. All treatable today with antibiotics if caught early enough. I am not saying the new swine flu will not kill many if we have a fall outbreak, but how much worse will it be than a normal flu season which kills tens of thousands every year is anyones guess.
You asked — I am not saying the new swine flu will not kill many if we have a fall outbreak, but how much worse will it be than a normal flu season which kills tens of thousands every year is anyones guess.
—
Well.., considering that this is considered the first pandemic declared since the Hong Kong flu in 1968, I would say it’s obviously on track for being “big”... :-)
Flu declared a pandemic
WHO’s heightened alert cites virus’s global spread
By David Brown and William Branigin
THE WASHINGTON POST
2:00 a.m. June 12, 2009
WASHINGTON – The World Health Organization yesterday raised its alert level for swine flu to Phase 6, declaring the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century as the virus continues to spread around the globe.
The Geneva-based U.N. agency said it decided to go to its highest warning level for the H1N1 strain – meaning that the outbreak has become a full-scale pandemic – after holding an emergency meeting with flu experts. It was the first flu pandemic declared by the WHO since 1968, when the Hong Kong flu broke out and ultimately killed about 1 million people worldwide.
“This means the world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jun/12/1n12flu0130-world-alert-over-swine-flu/?uniontrib
in 1918, it was young and healthy people who died.
Great tag line.
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