Anybody who is exposed to bodily fluids–from the living or the dead–is trained to always be careful. Using protective gloves, etc.
This has always been a good idea but HIV really made it serious.
I suspect that the authorities see this flu as a bit different and potentially more dangerous. This one is getting a lot more attention than the usual flu suspects. Normally flu season is announced and people are told it is time to get their shots. That is as far as it goes. This time is different.
Update: the child was from Mexico, and had been flown to Texas for treatment (CNN). Not that that makes it any less sad.
I just saw a virologist on TV talking about the first death in America. He said that it took longer than previous flus to kill. That told him that it was not fully evolved. He thought this might fizzle while it takes whatever time it needs. Then it may appear with a lot more dangerous strain. That is what happened in 1918 and other bad flus.
http://www.wpxi.com/video/19313969/index.html
This video has disturbing news.
Which could be summarized for those of us not currently able to watch it?
Okay, but what the heck does “not fully evolved” mean? What would be an example of an organism that is “fully evolved”? One that kills its host in 24 hours or less? If so, that doesn’t sound very helpful to the virus’s own survival.
As for the issue of why the virus is more deadly in Mexico, I’ve wondered all along if it only appears to be so because there are so many more cases there. If there are 2,500 suspected cases, and those numbers are based on people who are sick enough to seek medical attention, who knows how many thousands of other, milder cases there are that we don’t know about? This thing could have been spreading there for months, but it had to get bigger (and more deadly) than the usual yearly epidemic before anyone even noticed that something strange was going on. Even here in the U.S., the harder we look, the more cases we find. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up finding cases all over the country.
I wonder how fast they could get a vaccine in production if they really ramped things up. Every source I’ve read says it would take around six months, but at least one company (I can’t recall the name) claims they could do it in three.
The tape said the normal flu and swine flu combined to produce the 1918 flu. He said it came out at the same time ,the end of our flu season. Then it percolated for a while and came back much more lethally.
He said the young and healthy are particularly at risk because the system will kill the antibodies leaving the body defenseless. Oldsters and kids immune systems are less efficient and leave enough body defense to weather the onslaught. He mentioned that the CDC went from level 3 to 6 ,which is a very high level. It skipped 4 and 5. He says they will be announced shortly.
They have some time to come up with a vaccine. Generally they take 6 months to a year. We have 3 months and that may be enough time due to our more efficient laboratories .
The latest WHO release is reporting only 7 deaths in Mexico and only 26 confirmed cases. Granted, this is form yesterday, but the official numebrs are much lower than has been reported. This could change rapidly, of course.
I think a concern should be that this one fizzles out and a “boy who cried wolf” effect might come into play the next time something like this happens. The idiotic mainstream media not getting that prompt and widespread response is what prevented a breakout.
I have to say, the medical response on this has been quite impressive. Less than a month into it, and really less than two weeks from this being ID’ed as a new strain, they’ve:
- Genetically analyzed the virus and determined exactly what it is and where it came from
- Distributed the complete genome globally to researchers
- ID’ed what drugs work and don’t work
- found patient zero
- verified a rapid assay for detection
Pretty good for 2 weeks work.
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(Long) Summary of video:
- It’s a swine flu virus that has now migrated to humans
- There is some parallel with the 1918 flu, which is also believed to have been a swine flu that migrated to humans
- It is still in early stages if it is going to pandemic levels
- The 1918 flu killed between 20-50 million
- 1/3 of world population infected over two years in 1918
- about 3% died
- the 1918 flu appeared, disappeared over the summer, the re-emerged more virulent in the fall so there is concern that that could happen again. The worst death toll was in the young adults
There is a discussion of vaccines, that the current flu vaccine doesn’t incorporate what’s needed for this strain so a new vaccine needs to be developed. The new strain has been isolated, which is a first step in making the vaccine, but a vaccine for the new strain is months away.
There is concern that it may fade with the Northern hemisphere summer but emerge in the Southern hemisphere as they enter winter.
Discussion of how the Google map of the flu reports is constructed.
The doctor talking is predicting that the WHO pandemic rating will increase over the next few days.
Discussion of the difference between the hospitalized cases in Mexico vs. the total probable cases. Does say that most people at this stage will probably experience mild disease although, obviously, some are heavily impacted. The concern is that the virus may get more virulent.
More discussion of vaccines, and also of anti-viral medications. Human H1N1 is currently resistant to Tamiflu, though Swine H1N1 is not. The concern is that the two strains will interact and result in a Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 which will reduce the available useful anti-virals.
Again, speaks of following the 1918 pattern where the virus faded over the summer then re-emerged more virulent. Though this flu has some parallels, it may or may not continue to follow that same pattern.
Points out that the dots on the map is actually trailing actual infections due to the time needed to confirm infections.
Proposal to stop testing mild cases and concentrate on more serious ones, which would mean the total number affected would not be known as the mild disease would not be definitely confirmed.
Discussion of European cases, pointed out that most testing has been done in people returning from Mexico but those people do have contacts that may spread.
Says it’s almost entirely human to human transmission. Discussion of Mexico closing venues, strategies for clusters of high numbers of cases. Hand washing, social distancing as strategies to prevent infection.
Dr. thinks there will be a very intense vaccine effort and for monitoring the virus. Says that border closings aren’t happening because the virus has already jumped borders. Avoiding travel to concentrated centers of infection such as Mexico City has some merit, but it won’t stop transmission.
Says that if it continues the Mexico pattern, and/or the 1918 pattern, the group at most risk will be the young, healthy adults. The reason is because the mechanism of death is a overly strong immune reaction, which is most threatening in those with the strongest immune systems. Among the very young and elderly the fatality rate is not worse than for seasonal flu, so there will be some deaths there as well, but it’s the immune over-reaction that will kill the healthy adults that succumb.
Example discussed of NYC schools where children come back from a Mexico trip and transmission to others and to parents who are now starting to show symptoms. Extended this to other clusters of outbreaks.
The virus is the same in Mexico and the US, by laboratory confirmation. Thus, the same transmission rates and fatalities can be expected in the US as in Mexico, it’s that the US is at an earlier stage in the US. This moves into a discussion of official authorities, official statements, and related issues. He again predicts the WHO pandemic rating will go up over the next two weeks and that problems will increase.
Discussion of speaker’s credentials and education.
Speaker says the 1918 flu was a swine virus, but says others have long held it to be an avian virus. So he maintains he is right (of course) but acknowledges differences of opinion in academia.
Says that as of today it is moving in to Asia. Mexico is the origin, but it is spreading due to travel, especially with major airport hubs. Says that it could “burn” itself out and not re-emerge, but he personally doubts it. Reiterates the similarities to 1918.
Not the best phrase, is it? I think, in this context, he means “at peak virulence”. There is an alternate meaning for a parasite (which in a sense a virus is) that reaches an equilibrium between infecting new people vs. killing hosts quickly that allow for maximum virus load in the population long term, but that doesn’t fit in this context.
It normally takes six months due to quantity and quality controls. I have no doubt some vaccine can be produced quicker, but it will be of limited quantity and may have quality issues.
Um… not quite. It doesn’t “kill the antibodies” it actually causes an overreaction of the immune system called a cytokine storm. I’m hoping some more qualified Doper can come in and explain that better than I can, but the important point is that it triggers and overreaction of the immune system that causes death. The more robust your immune system is the more likely such a reaction is to kill you. Thus, it is most threatening to the young and healthy, those people with robust immune systems.
Such a flu will also kill the elderly and very young at the same rate as normal flu, for the same reasons. The cytokine reactions will cause death on top of the normal death rate.
What he said was that they recently changed the definitions. The rating is actually from WHO, and it is announced as 4 currently. He thinks 5 will be next week and 6 the week after.
Those low numbers are the labortory confirmed cases, and they’re lower in part because it takes time to run the tests. The numbers will definitely go up.
For those in the field – I understand that certain test take a while to come back with results. Given that … does throwing man-hours at the problem lead to faster vaccines?
For instance, could Glaxo have a unit start working 24 hours straight – with overlapping 9-hour shifts, say?
It would help some, but there’s a limit to how fast things can be done that require biological processes. For example, a cell based vaccine (as opposed to egg based) is the current ideal for speed. However, you still need to grow up sufficient amounts of host cells, and that can’t be sped up. Cells grow at their own pace, no matter how loud you yell at them (I’ve tried). True, you could make more vaccine in the same time by bringing more people to bear, but there’s a limit to how much time you could shave off. In fact, time is usually not affected greatly by batch size, assuming you’ve got a scalable and validated manufacturing process. By that I mean that a 10x manufacturing run might cost 20-50% more, not 10x. Kind of like building a car factory, once you’ve got it staffed and up and running, the marginal cost of building more cars is not that great.
Then, there’s QC testing at the end. This can be sped up again by having more people performing the various tests (assuming you have trained and qualified people), but many assays have a built in incubation time or reaction time that can’t be decreased.
Then there’s the matter of documentation preparation and review.
I suppose in an emergency situation, a validated and proven manufacturer could have number of areas of oversight rescinded by the FDA, and the vaccine released “at risk”, but I’m not aware of that happening.
WHO raises swine flu alert to ‘pandemic level 5’
The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert for swine flu to the second highest level, meaning that it believes a global outbreak of the disease is imminent.
I really don’t know what to think. On the one hand we have quotes like this from WHO Director General Margaret Chan "“All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” Chan told reporters in Geneva. “It really is all of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic.”
But on the other hand almost all cases outside of Mexico have had only light symptoms, and only a handful of cases have needed hospitalization.
Yeah, there’s some weirdly contradicting info out there right now, at least for a layman like me. I mean, per the wiki article about influenza, there’s something like 3 - 5 million severe infections a year, and about 500,000 deaths. And the WHO is getting all up in arms about, what, some thousand cases at most? A couple of hundred deaths, maybe?
The obvious conclusion is that the experts know something awful is about to happen.
I am leaving London indefinitely for my country pad tomorrow, at least until the situation becomes clear. Being extremely paranoid in general I also have 3 or 4 years’ supplies there of essentials.
As the aristocracy did in the 14th and 17th centuries. 
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All countries should have plans to contain and mitigate spread of the virus; the WHO is advising the plans be activated.
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A pandemic is an epidemic that is not localized, so, by definition, ‘all humanity … is under threat’.
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Rural Mexican villages (where the flu broke out) have a poor health care standard; countries from which people can afford to vacation in Mexico have good health care and access to very expensive medication.
The flu has shown up in my town and I’ve flown twice this week; I will probably request face masks and spray alcohol from our manufacturing facility, and push for hand sanitizer in the rest rooms (in addition to soap). But I will go to work until I get a head-ache.
One can only hope, for Angry Lurker’s sake, that his butler, parlourmaids, and cooks do not commute from, say, Mexico City.