A Few Comments On Pandemic Influenza

[MikeWB]

A Few Comments On Pandemic Influenza

Here are some thoughts on the current swine influenza outbreak. These are just off the top of my head - I will undoubtedly think of more to say and add it in the comments or another posting. I apologize for the lack of links. I may come back and put some in.

I am both unqualified and qualified to make a few comments. I'm unqualified because I no longer work on influenza virus, because I'm not a virologist, because I have no inside information at all about the current outbreak. OTOH, I have some claim to know what I'm talking about. I worked on influenza virus as part of the Antigenic Cartography team at the University of Cambridge for a few years. We helped the WHO choose the H3N2 strain for the human vaccine. I've met the heads of the 4 international flu centers and even been in the WHO Situation Room in Geneva - a self-contained underground fortress. I spent a lot of time hanging out and talking to influenza virologists, many from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. I was even an author on a Science paper on the global spread of epidemic influenza. Plus I've read all the books on the 1918 pandemic, which gives some (largely retrospective) insight into what happened back then, and perhaps some insight into what could be about to happen.

I also feel it's good for someone like me to comment because I'm outside the flu world and the people inside it will be unlikely to say much. Flu is a highly political issue, to put it mildly. People working in the flu research community will be reluctant to speak up. So I should make it very clear that the comments below are just my opinions, and don't represent anyone else's thoughts.

I'll try to just make a few points that I think are fairly sober - neither alarmist, nor dismissive - and to keep speculation out of it.

Apart from the details of the actual virus, the social side of a potential pandemic is extraordinarily interesting. Very few people will have really concrete information, and those that do will still only be making their best guesses.

In a pandemic, or something that looks like it might be one, wild rumors sweep through the population. That will happen on an unprecedented scale this time round.

The virus has, as far as we know, not spent much time in humans yet. Once it does, it will begin to adapt itself in unpredictable ways. It may become more virulent, or less virulent. It may develop resistance to the antivirals that are currently effective. Antiviral resistance has been a topic of great concern for at least a couple of years. The current virus is already known to be resistant to both amantadine and rimantadine, though oseltamivir is still effective.

If you ask virologists what the probability is that there will be another pandemic, they'll tell you it's 1.0. It's just a matter of time until it happens. it's like a non-zero probability state in a Markov process. When it does happen, what you do in the first phase is critically important. In the case of the avian influenza they would try to immediately cull all potentially infected birds, to stop the virus spreading and mutating and becoming more likely to enter the human population. When it did get into the human population, there would be swift action to isolate it, again to reduce the spread and the time the virus has to adapt. In the case of the avian influenzas in humans, there has been very little airborne transmission, and we're lucky for that. But the current virus seems to already have that property, which is of great concern.

It would be a miracle if the current epidemic vaccine provided any protection against this virus. The human vaccine does contain a strain against H1N1, but that's a strain picked based on sampled human viruses from many months ago. The epidemic vaccine is aimed at thwarting what's known as antigenic drift - the relatively slow accumulation of point mutations in the virus. Pandemic strains arise through antigenic shift in which large chunks of viral genetic material, sometimes whole genes, are mixed between influenza viruses from different species. In a pandemic strain some of the genetic material and the proteins it expresses will very likely never have been seen by a human immune system.

The current WHO standard influenza test kit is not very useful in identifying this strain. They have issued instructions warning against false negatives.

Some aspects of the current outbreak are, to my mind, cause for great concern.

The acting-director of the CDC has already said: "There are things that we see that suggest that containment is not very likely." That is a remarkably candid statement. I think it's very clear that the cat is out of the bag. The question is how bad is it going to be. That's impossible to tell right now, because we do not know what the virus will look like in the future, after it has had time to mutate and adapt inside humans.

In normal circumstances it takes about 6 months to make the world's supply of epidemic vaccine. It's a long and difficult process requiring tons of virus to be grown in chicken eggs. A canidate vaccine strain has to be identified, it has to be one that grows well in the chicken egg (including not killing the chick). Even under the high pressure of a potential pandemic, making a new vaccine is going to take months. By then the virus may have moved on (via mutation) and the vaccine's efficacy may be less. Note that the 1918 virus killed tens of millions of people over a period much shorter than this.

Diverting the world's influenza resources to covering a pandemic threat necessarily diverts them from work on epidemic vaccines. Epidemic flu kills roughly 0.5M people a year as it is. Not being able to pay due attention to the epidemic strains is also a bad thing.

The new virus has been popping up in various places in the US in the last days. I expect it will go global in the next couple of days, maximum. What's to stop it? The virus has been isolated in several diverse areas and in many cases is genetically identical. The 1918 virus also popped up, in many cases inexplicably, across the US. The book America's Forgotten Pandemic is worth a read.

There were 3 waves of the 1918/19 pandemic. The first was in summer of 1918 - very unusual, as influenza normally falls to extremely low rates during summer. Note that the current outbreak is also highly unseasonal.

The 1918 pandemic killed with a very unusual age pattern. Instead of peaks in just the very young and the very old, there was a W shape, with a huge number of young and healthy people who would not normally die from influenza. There are various conjectures as to the cause of this. The current virus is also killing young and healthy adults.

The social breakdown in a pandemic is extraordinary. If you read The Great Pandemic by John Barry, you'll get some sense of it. America's Forgotten Pandemic also helps give some idea of what it must have been like.

No-one knows just how many people died as a result of the 1918 pandemic. Estimates generally range between 40M and 100M, and have trended upwards over the years. Influenza is not the easiest to diagnose (hence the category ILI - influenza-like illnesses). It also strips the throat of protective epithelial cells, leaving you susceptible to opportunistic follow-on infections, such as pneumonia, which often do the killing.

No-one knows how bad another pandemic might be in terms of mortality. Low estimates are in the single digit millions. Someone from the WHO suggested a significantly higher number about 4 years ago in the context of avian influenza and that number was quickly retracted. Jeff Taubenberger, who was responsible for resurrecting and sequencing the 1918 virus (an extraordinary story, related in a couple of books) has published work saying 100M might be possible. No-one knows, and it depends on many factors, including the characteristics of the virus, how early it is detected, how easily it spreads, how virulent it is (obviously), the social measures taken to combat it, antiviral resistance, and many other factors.

I don't think anyone knows how the balance between vastly increased medical knowledge and vastly increased national and international travel will play out. If this virus is not popping up all over the world within a week's time, I'll be surprised. Airports are already screening people arriving from Mexico, but I imagine it's too late and it's certainly not being done globally.

History dictates that you should probably not believe anything any politician says about pandemic influenza. There has been a strong tendency to downplay risks. All sorts of factors are at work in communicating with the public. You can be sure that everything officially said by the WHO or CDC has been very carefully vetted and considered. There's no particular reason to believe anything else you hear, either :-)

Facemasks have an interesting history, and have made it into law several times. In 1918 we didn't even know what a virus was, let alone how tiny they are, so the gauze on the masks was likely totally ineffective.

In conclusion, I'd say that the thing is largely out of our hands for the time being. We're going to have to wait and see what happens, and make our best guesses along the way.

The influenza people at the CDC and the other international labs are an amazing team of experts. They've been at this game for a very long time and they work extremely hard and generally get a bad rap. It's no wonder flu is such a political issue, the responsibility is high and the tendency towards opaqueness is understandable. Despite all the expertise though, at bottom you have an extremely complex virus - much of whose behavior is unknown, especially in the case of antigenic shift, especially when it is so young, and especially when you don't know what nearby mutational opportunities may exist for it in antigenic space - spreading in a vastly more complex environment (our bodies), and with us moving and interacting in odd ways in a complex and extremely interconnected world. It's a wonder we know as much as we do, but in many ways we don't know much at all.

[LordLindsey]

Who in the Hell wrote this?

LINDSEY

[sirbadman]

I hate alex jones, but he had a mexican caller on his show giving an update on the swine flu situation.

Interesting that AJ now says "global bankers" as opposed to "german death cult", well, at least this time.

I have no comments or views on this until there is more info out there.

[Jenny Lake]

I think Mike's giving us an opportunity to see just how bald the flu propaganda can be.

So this outsider, from the Geneva Situation Room, is speculating off the top of his head that the pandemic will go global in a couple of days maximum because "the 1918 virus also popped up, inexplicably, across the U.S"...and "no one knows just how many people died as a result of the 1918 pandemic"...but "In 1918 we didn't even know what a virus was, let alone how tiny they are". So "in conclusion...the thing is largely out of our hands" because "you have an extremely complex virus-- much of whose behavior is unknown...[with] mutational opportunities...in a vastly more complex environment...interacting in odd ways" that the "amazing team of experts" at the CDC who've "been at this game for a very long time" made such a political issue...and "don't know much at all" because "History dictates that you should probably not believe anything any politician says about pandemic influenza".

[AntiPharisee]

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Swine Flu Biological Population Extermination Operation!!!

Murder By Injection - "Those who survived it [ Spanish Flu Epidemic ] were the ones who had refused the vaccine."
HERE,  HERE,  HERE,  HERE,  HERE, HERE
or:
http://sites.google.com/site/educatesouls
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"The influenza people at the CDC and the other international labs are an amazing team of experts."

They are just another group of tax parasites who agree to remain uninformed about the
Devil-inspired agenda going on way above their heads, in return for a very
nice paycheck.
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To get this to go global do you think they're going to wait for swine-flu to spread
by travellers? No, they'll just spike the water supply or whatever in 100 different
cities and THEN watch it spread.
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Now city councils are trying to ban bottled water and they're saying,
because "tap water is better for you." I think, after listening to DBS for years,
that they're going to spike the water supply with an organic poison ( not just flouride ).  

     


 

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[Ognir]

Didn't self declared ZIONIST Bidon promise us that Obama was going to be tested shortly after getting into power, as we come on 100 days in office :ugeek:

[Jenny Lake]

Didn't self declared ZIONIST Bidon promise us that Obama was going to be tested shortly after getting into power, as we come on 100 days in office

Yep--he sure did. And it looks like the game is on, creating as much confusion as possible like the outsider/insider's commentary above. I haven't read anything yet to suggest this round of flu is abnormal EXCEPT for the post about Obama's visit to Mexico City where he was greeted by Felipe Solis who died the next day.
...very weird and suspicious, begging a load of questions.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Dept. of Homeland Security - Public Health Emergency Declared for Swine Flu, Napolitano Says


By Vincent Del Giudice

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- A public health emergency has been declared in the U.S. to free up resources to deal with the swine flu, Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said at a White House briefing today.

No official travel advisories have been issued by the U.S. State Department in relation to the disease, Napolitano said. A follow-on flu outbreak is possible in several months, she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Washington at mailto:vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net">vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

The NY Prep School appears to be the Swine Flu:
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Swine Flu Virus Outbreak Confirmed at New York School (Update2)
Share | Email | Print | A A A

By Shannon Pettypiece and Beth Jinks

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Health officials have confirmed an outbreak at a New York private school of swine flu that may have come from Mexico where the virus is suspected of killing 81 people.

The illness has been verified in at least eight students at the St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens and more cases are likely, said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a press conference today. There are no confirmed cases outside the school and there doesn't appear to be a citywide increase in flu-like illnesses, he said.

The virus may have been brought back by students who were vacationing in Mexico during a recent spring break, though that couldn't be confirmed, Bloomberg said. The virus has sickened more than 1,000 in Mexico. There have been 20 confirmed cases in five U.S. states requiring one hospitalization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today. New York health officials have been urging people not to go to the hospital unless they are severely ill.

"There is an outbreak at St. Francis school and we are monitoring that outbreak very carefully. We're also looking for outbreaks elsewhere in the city. So far there does not seem to be any," Bloomberg said. "It's most likely to have been brought back from Mexico but nobody really knows."

Link to Mexico

About 200 students at St. Francis were ill last week with flu-like symptoms, the New York Department for Public Health and Mental Hygiene said yesterday. The World Health Organization declared the swine flu epidemic "a public health emergency of international concern" yesterday. The organization's director- general, Margaret Chan, warned countries to be on the lookout for suspicious cases of respiratory disease that may be linked to the Mexico outbreak.

Schools, libraries and museums in Mexico have been closed and the government is handing out face masks. While the virus has pandemic potential because it is a new strain infecting people, it isn't certain to cause a worldwide outbreak of deadly flu, Chan said.

New Yorkers should stay home from work if they are feeling ill, wash their hands regularly and cover their coughs and sneezes, the city's health department said. City schools will remain open tomorrow, although St. Francis, which is private, will be closed, officials said.

"We have other specimens from students in the school and we expect that many of those will also be confirmed positive," said Thomas R Frieden, New York's health commissioner. "The number here is not so important, it's the fact that at this school we have a confirmed cluster of swine flu."

To contact the reporter on this story: Beth Jinks in New York at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... a3FXAdOsew

[Ognir]

Still don't buy it
All across Jews news
even here in my village tonight


Imagine if ppl could understand who owns the banks spread in 72 hours :lol:

[Travis]

Imagine if they called it 'Jew flu'. :lol:  I am sure we all know what the symptoms would be...

[Ognir]

The Chosen People (The ex-Russians already have genetic diseases)

[Jenny Lake]

The wikipedia has already adjusted its flu page to account for today's announcements
http://en.wkipedia.org/wki/Influenza_A_ ... btype_H1N1
History in the making.....

[Jenny Lake]

Influenza A virus subtype H1N1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Flu
Influenza
Virus
Avian influenza
Swine influenza
Flu season
Research
Vaccine
Treatment
Genome project
H5N1 strain
H1N1 strain
Pandemic
 
H1N1 is a subtype of the species Influenza A virus. The "H" refers to the Hemagglutinin protein, and the "N" refers to the Neuraminidase protein. H1N1 has mutated into various strains including the Spanish Flu strain (now extinct in the wild), mild human flu strains, endemic pig strains, and various strains found in birds. A variant of H1N1 was responsible for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed some 50 million to 100 million people worldwide from 1918 to 1919.[1] A different variant exists in pig populations.

Low pathogenic H1N1 strains still exist in the wild today, causing roughly half of all flu infections in 2006.[2] When the 1918 virus was compared with human flu viruses in 2005, it was noticed that it had alterations in just 25 to 30 of the virus's 4,400 amino acids. These changes were enough to turn a bird virus into a version that was human-transmissible.[3]

In April of 2009, an H1N1 outbreak killed over eighty in Mexico, and was believed to have infected more than 1500 individuals worldwide as of April 26, 2009. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control warned that it was possible the outbreak could develop into a pandemic.[4]
_________________________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_ ... btype_H1N1
trying this link again

[MikeWB]

Flu 'Oddities' Archives: http://www.legitgov.org/flu_oddities_shortnews.html