Swine Flu Genetics Suggest a Vaccine Is Possible

Kristina at Science News writes "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced findings May 1 from genetic studies of swine flu virus from six different countries. A strong similarity from country to country suggests all the infections are from one strain, making a vaccine a strong possibility. It will be several months at least before such a vaccine would be developed, though."

Comments

Stop the madness

[wondercool]

Sofar it looks like this is just another influenza variant.

Stop panicking, it's really not interesting enough. What has taken us? Some irrational fear of death? No other news? Organisations beating their drum for self preservation?

Please?!

Re:Stop the madness

[jd]

What's interesting is:

(a) The total lack of action by the Mexican Government, when it was still considered entirely possible that it was going to be extremely dangerous.

(b) The totally inappropriate responses by most of the other world Governments, and

(c) The very slow and questionable response by health care officials who have been preparing for a major flu epidemic for some time now and AUGHT to have much better procedures by this time.

This particular strain looks like it's relatively mild. It is missing a protein that is carried by the deadlier strains, for a start. However, what this experience tells us is that those ultimately responsible for handling epidemics and pandemics are incompetent and/or corrupt, and will be utterly ineffective should a pandemic actually occur.

If this ineptness is repeated when a deadly flu virus outbreak does happen, we will see an outcome not much different from 1918 or any other such disaster. THAT is what we should be worried about.

(Not that this is new. After Y2K, did we see any effort to fix the 2038 bug? Nooooo. It's a long time off and we'll have replaced all our software by then, just like we did with our two-digit-date software before 2000.)

Re:Stop the madness

[KevinIsOwn]

What an incredible bunch of nonsense. The response by governments so far has actually be surprisingly good- the disease barely spread outside of North America so far, and even within North America its reach is rather limited. Had governments not acted this wouldn't be the case at all. The infections in New York City alone would have spread out of control.

Where do you come off accusing the officials of being inept or corrupt (or slow despite preparations)? You give absolutely no examples, but there are plenty of examples of officials rising to the challenge (Quickly closing schools in New York that were effected by the virus to stop the spread, quickly quarantining people who had visited Mexico who were ill with the disease and notifying passengers near them that they are at risk, having stocks of tamiflu and other drugs ready for distribution)

While the health response in Mexico clearly leaves a lot to be desired, they did eventually act, and it appears they were at least somewhat effective. If anything this indicates the need for the US to do more to ensure countries who don't have as well funded disease control centers have the resources necessary to identify these sorts of diseases before they spread all over the place.

And so although it appears the whole ordeal with this strain of flu was fairly overblown, it offered (and continues to offer) a training exercise for officials for when the real thing happens. Of course mistakes were made, but at least they can identify them and try to fix them so that we are better prepared should a pandemic come our way in the future.

(And for all the talk about how "mild" this strain is, sure it won't kill you, but having the flu with the added bonus of potential vomiting and diarrhea don't sound all that fun to me, so I'm quite happy with the continued vigilance in stopping the spread of the disease)

Ooh, a swine flu vaccine!

[Threni]

How exciting! Because, you know, it's really dangerous, and well worthy of all the attention in the media. Isn't it? It's going to kill millions of people around the world, right? The 191..uh, make that 101 people in Mexico is just the start. Once it kicks in, the millions of (insert currency) it'll cost to develop a vaccine is going to be well worth it.

Re:Ooh, a swine flu vaccine!

[bunratty]

I'm pretty sure it will kill millions around the world... eventually. Flu kills hundreds of thousands worldwide every year, and this novel flu virus will be around for tens or even hundreds of years. If this strain is responsible for a few percent of flu deaths and is around for only 100 years, that can easily add up to millions... eventually.

Re:H1N1 A flu, please

[artor3]

Too late for that. Everyone knows it as swine flu... having the media call it something else won't change a thing.

The real thing that the media needs to be putting straight is just how little of a threat this flu is. It hasn't been any more lethal than seasonal flu, nor is it really spreading as fast as was originally believed.

The media is causing a panic simply for ratings, which is quite despicable when you think about it.

Re:H1N1 A flu, please

[artor3]

What does that have to do with anything? The whole reason for people wanting to change the name is to convince the populace that it's safe to buy and eat pork.

Re:So....We've all forgotten

[KliX]

No, we never really cared.