My friend Chris (not in Paris), as usual, chimes in with a good explanation for why scientists are so ga-ga over the Swine Flu even though it doesn't seem to be much more deadly than the regular flu.
You asked why they’re treating swine flu as such a high priority. Two reasons:
First, because they’re having fun getting to use all the new toys that were developed for tracking avian flu (they’re getting close to real-time monitoring and prevalence reports at a level public health authorities have never had before). That may turn out to be a blessing in disguise even if this virus never develops into anything worse – the chance to put all of these new tracking protocols through a “live-fire” exercise is going to pay dividends. Also, all the policy controversies (quarantine or not, isolation or not, school closings or not – and how long on each of those) are getting a real-life airing and debate. And all the career people are shaking out their working relationships. And the system for rapid vaccine development is also getting put through its paces for the first time.
So, some of it is just driven by the fact that they have more data than before, but even if this turns out to be a false alarm, we may be grateful for the dry run.
Second, viruses swap genes with each other when they infect an organism.
This is why so many new human flu viruses show up in China: because there are so many birds, pigs, and humans living in close proximity. Pigs are a bridge – they can catch both avian flu strains and strains that infect humans. So something really new to which humans aren’t susceptible can hang out in a pig and possibly pick up the keys to the human immune system. (Which is likely how the bird flu virus came about.) (The fact that this new one popped up in Mexico and out-of-season also caught the experts by surprise.)
Now this one is mild, but it’s highly contagious and no one has any immunity to it. It could hand off that ability to something really, really nasty. It wouldn’t even necessarily be something new. It could be something that’s been around for awhile that is mild because we’re resistant to it (in which case the resistance would disappear), or something we’ve been vaccinated against (in which case the vaccination just became worthless).
That’s why you’ll see some doctors worrying about someone being infected with both this and the seasonal flu at the same time. We don’t want them “comparing notes.”
