Swine Flu Still Going Strong

By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service

The H1N1 virus, widely known as swine flu, is responsible for 127 deaths and more than 27,000 documented cases of infection in the U.S., explained medical experts Tuesday.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discussed the implications of the virus’ spread. He clarified the difference between seasonal and pandemic influenza, while noting that the two categories of disease could potentially overlap.

According to Fauci, seasonal flu is “exquisitely predictable,” and the population has immunity to similar strains of the disease. The seasonal flu causes approximately 36,000 deaths per year in the U.S.

The pandemic flu is comparatively unpredictable. Fauci said that this sort of virus is “new enough that the…vast majority of the population has had not only no exposure to the virus, but they haven’t had exposure to anything that’s even related to that virus.” Because the population has no “residual immunity” to this new virus, the disease is more likely to harm young people, who normally are not deeply affected by the seasonal flu.

The World Health Organization declared a flu pandemic for the first time in 41 years on June 11th.

Fauci said that many measures to protect the public’s health have been taken over the past several months, beginning with low-tech measures such as closing schools. The CDC has isolated the virus, and five companies are currently working to create a vaccine to potentially be administered to the population dependent on a more deadly or wide-spread H1N1 strain.

He said that the recent strain of H1N1 is not as dangerous as other related viruses.

“It’s not killing a high percentage of people, and the same thing holds true for transmissibility,” said Fauci.

Fauci also noted that the virus has been “remarkably constant” and not susceptible to mutations that could render a vaccine ineffective. “Can it change to the point of veering away from the vaccine we’re making? Yes. Is it doing it? No.”

Dr. Harvey V. Fineburg, President of the Institute of Medicine, warned that health care officials should not underestimate the potential threat, even though a campaign to immunize millions of Americans overestimated the impact of the virus in the 1970s.

“In 1976, the focus of policy-makers and public health authorities were almost entirely driven by the worst case. Today we have to be careful not to make the complementary error of having all of our attention only on the most likely case,” Fineburg explained.

The mortality rate for documented H1N1 cases in the U.S. is 0.46 percent.