A pox for an epoch

A confluence of news regarding the dangers posed by the coming flu season. A good summary of the problems to be had with the H5N1 strain of avian flu can be found here at Time Magazine.

The picture is not pretty.

It seems that the outbreaks from the 2006 flu season are being repeated again this year but with a larger geographic footprint. Outbreaks of avian influenza have hit all the usual places as well as spreading to Africa and more nations along the Pacific rim.

The scary part is that it seems at least one strain is starting to show resistance to the "old standby" cure for the flu: Tamiflu. This article has all the details about the various discoveries of Tamiflu-resistant strains. Specifically:

Two patients who recently died of H5N1 avian influenza in Egypt had a strain of the virus that was moderately resistant to oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today, but the finding has not prompted new health advisories.

The reason for no new health advisories that the method by which the flu is transmitted between avian and human hosts seems to require fairly close contact with the birds and does not yet seem transmittable from human to human. The article also highlights one of the problems with eradicating the sources of the virus in their animal hosts:

The Egyptian woman reported today as a new H5N1 patient was admitted to a hospital Jan 11 after having given birth on Jan 2, IRIN reported. She initially denied contact with poultry, but WHO spokesman Hassan el-Bushra told IRIN that ducks and pigeons were found in her home and chickens had died nearby. [Emphasis Eliel's--ed.]

Anyone in these countries admitting to being in contact with sick poultry faces the prospect of having those in authority arrive at their homes and euthanize their entire flocks in an effort to eradicate those carrying the influenza virus. For many of these people, that would mean either a loss of their livelihood or their family's sustenance. It is easy for us in the west to criticize and wonder aloud about the influezna-eradication efforts in these countries because we don't have to weigh the risks between our families having food on the table against that of contracting a dangerous flu virus.

The bad news for us though is that a recent study has given more weight to the suspicion that the method of transmission for the great flu pandemic of 1918 was through an avian vector that then mutated into a version capable of spreading via human to human transmission. A brief summary of the study can be found here. The danger is that H5N1 might follow in this viruses footsteps and become the kind of killer that the 1918 flu was.

But, there's some worse news from that article that I should share. [If you clicked on the link to read that article, and if you've been a regular reader of Eliel's blog, you will probably know what is coming next--Ed.]

While I commend the people who performed the study for determining once and for all how it was that the 1918 strain of the flu managed to kill so many, I cannot help but be shocked and appalled (again) that scientists have taken to re-creating viruses from gene strands obtained from those long-dead. It's kind of telling that

[t]he study "proves the 1918 virus was indeed different from all of the other flu viruses we know of," says Kawaoka, a professor in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, and at the University of Tokyo.

But now, this unique strain of influenza virus exists again.

Real smart going.

Technorati Tags: H5N1, Pandemic