Health Expert: How to Track and Fight Swine Flu
Jon Andrus of the Pan American Health Organization talks about the H1N1 virus
The H1N1 virus, or swine flu, has much of America—and the rest of the world—worried about their health this winter. Even experts like Jon K. Andrus have trouble estimating how many people will be affected and how badly. Andrus, who is the deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization, has worked for 25 years in the field of vaccines, immunizations, and primary care around the world. He recently chatted with U.S. News about how the global community is keeping track of the pandemic and how people can both prevent and fight infection. Excerpts:
What is the mortality rate for H1N1?
It's less than 1 percent in any country that you look at. The data, regardless of the country, at times is difficult to assess with a great deal of accuracy. But when we were earlier in the outbreak, we could make estimates. In the U.S., it was less than 0.3 percent. It's very small and probably in a ballpark of seasonal influenza.
What are the primary problems in monitoring the virus?
The challenge is when you have such large numbers. It spreads very, very rapidly in a number of weeks, so it overwhelms your public health capacity to investigate every case.
Is the virus mutating to be more or less virulent, or more or less deadly?
The virus has undergone some change, but very, very little. One could say, potentially, that it's the same virus. So the virus being used to make the vaccine should remain effective. So that's good news. Also, there's no genetic study that indicates this virus is getting more virulent.
What sectors of the population have contracted it most frequently?
Normally with seasonal influenza, you have very young, infant children, and then you have another peak in the elderly. So we call that a bimodal age distribution. And with [H1N1], what you see is the ages between there, particularly young age groups, becoming more infected as compared to the seasonal influenza outbreak.
How thoroughly has the vaccine been tested?
The vaccine is, by definition, a new vaccine. So it needs to be tested using all the procedures and the protocols that are required by the World Health Organization. There is a very detailed protocol about how they test for toxicity among animals, and then they do human experiments in very small numbers to ensure there's no effect. Then, through this phase approach, they do larger and larger clinical trials among human volunteers that allow them to make comparisons between those that receive the vaccine and those that don't and calculate what is the potential, at the end of all this, what would be the best calculation of the efficacy of the vaccine. So it's a very detailed, very prolonged process.
How has the U.S. response been, compared to past epidemics?
With the H5N1 scare—what some people called the bird flu—the case fatality rate was 70 percent. Because of that, there was a lot of preparation, and at the end of the day, this virus, H1N1, is not nearly as severe, but that led to the United States—and virtually most every country in the world—being as prepared as it's ever been in history.
What should the typical American household do to prepare for H1N1?
That's really the backbone of the response. It really is that approach that will, at the end of the day, diminish transmission. Certainly, the vaccine, when it's available, is the best way to prevent transmission, but we should be thinking about the other ways of preventing transmission. Hygiene, frequent hand-washing, covering those sneezes and coughs—those are effective.
- Read 10 Things You Didn't Know About Swine Flu.
- See our gallery of political cartoons.
- See photos from healthcare town hall meetings.
Reader Comments
H1N flu shot
Cannot find it in my area of Hemet CA .. I am considered high risk and still am unable to find a place to get it done. Anyone with infomation please let me know.Thanks
Not as virulant in VA
I've been diagnosed with swine a few days ago. It feels like the regular flu but not as intense. I think taking Tamiflu within 24 hours has helped.
Tracking the Lies
The CDC has completely undermined its credibility. Check out this story by CBS News tinyurl.com/yfgblxo on the overstatement of swine flu cases by the CDC, and their efforts to manipulate the statistics by having states stop confirming cases through lab testing. It has not received any major press coverage, because the media is too busy collecting their pay checks from big pharma hyping and scaring and causing people to run and stand in line because they are afraid they wont get a vaccine.
A smart reporter would investigate whether the sudden rise in flu cases has any relationship to the release of FluMist vaccines several weeks before the injected form of the vaccine. A quote from the FluMist package insert:
“ FluMist contains live attenuated influenza viruses that must infect and replicate in cells lining the nasopharynx of the recipient to induce immunity. Vaccine viruses capable of infection and replication can be cultured from nasal secretions obtained from vaccine recipients. The relationship of viral replication in a vaccine recipient and transmission of vaccine viruses to other individuals has not been established.”
The investigation is easy: ask for the PCR chain analysis of the patients who are getting both seasonal flu and H1N1, and compare it to PCR chain analysis of the strains in the vaccines. I see a Pulitzer Prize here for a real investigative reporter who understands the reporting and investigational methodology of original source documentation and who knows how to ask the right questions and won’t just accept at face value the statements from the CDC, FDA, IOM,and HHS. It won’t be the first time a vaccine caused an outbreak – vaccine strain polio has been found to have infected dozens of people in Africa and India after vaccine campaigns in those countries and lab analysis confirmed the cases were caused by the vaccine virus. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/health/july-dec09/polio_08-24.html
The real tragedy and epidemic is childhood asthma, which kills approx. 5000 per year and an additional 4000 related deaths per year. The comparable outrage and PR campaign to find the cause and the cure by the CDC and other health agencies doesn’t exist even though it kills more people than the flu and causes 500,000 hospitalizations with an average stay of 3 days.
But it appears as if much of it could be prevented according to a study by University of Manitoba researchers who revealed that asthma rates are reduced by 50% just by delaying the first dose of DPT from 2 months to 4 months. Wow – what a stunning and potentially lifesaving revelation! http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/572891
Also reporters, could you ask the CDC for the scientific studies saying it was safe to give a flu shot to a pregnant woman? Also for the studies that show it reduces illness, asthma attacks and hospitalizations for patients with asthma? This study suggests the opposite. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/703235
Another clue might be to check hospitals for hospitalization rates for asthma the 3 weeks prior to the release of the FluMist vaccine, and then check the same hospitals for asthma hospitalizations 3 weeks after the release of the vaccine. The numbers might look interesting enough to spark an investigation.
While said reporter is investigating, could they look into why flu vaccine manufacturing has been taken over by the Department of Defense and Homeland Security? It is just amazing that 4 years after the DoD began handing out contracts to biotech firms to prepare for a pandemic, and the production capacity was ramped up to quickly (5 months as opposed to the usual 12) manufacture a large number of doses of vaccine, a pandemic materializes! What awesome timing! Especially since we have not had a deadly pandemic since 1918 (the two in the ‘50’s and 60’s did not have high death rates). Remember the Woodward and Bernstein’s of yore – not the current versions who accept rather than challenge current dogma)
and go after this story!!
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