H1N1 ("Swine") Flu

[FJ218700]

It is not my job, nor curiosity to understand the exact science of cell mutation etc. But I know enough to understand that influenza is a dynamically mutating virus that has potential to merge with other strains of similar types. The likes of which your body would not recognize as foreign until far too late in the infection process.

You make it sound like Eric's Trapper Keeper. This is a virus, not a bacterium. Such genetic recombination events take place on an evolutionary scale, and only under the rarest of host conditions.

As I said earlier, we are looking most likely at a single nucleotide polymorphism. that is all. This is not a Creighton novel.

As someone else posted, early reports have suggested a cross-mutation between Avian, Swine, and Human strains.

link?

 

[drewsof07]

You make it sound like Eric's Trapper Keeper. This is a virus, not a bacterium. Such genetic recombination events take place on an evolutionary scale, and only under the rarest of host conditions.
As I said earlier, we are looking most likely at a single nucleotide polymorphism. that is all. This is not a Creighton novel.

I didn't claim to be an authority on the subject...

link?

I heard it on the radio on Saturday (25 April) :/

 

[Eanair]

link?

Anne Schuchat, head of science and public health at the CDC, said that the US virus is an unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences from North American pigs, Eurasian pigs, birds and humans. The H protein on its surface, having hitherto circulated only in pigs, is one most human immune systems have never seen, the crucial requirement for a pandemic flu.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...u-virus-in-us-and-mexico-may-go-pandemic.html

It sounds like antigenic shift to me.

 

[FJ218700]

perhaps antigenic shift, no link in that article to any data though. Who are the PIs overseeing the genetic work?

need to see the genome sequence.

 

[Eanair]

perhaps antigenic shift, no link in that article to any data though. Who are the PIs overseeing the genetic work?

need to see the genome sequence.

No idea who the PIs are.

I would guess/assume that the CDC labs have been working on it, no? USAMRIID might be in on the action too?

From the limited info available thus far, antigenic shift is my guesstimate as of now.

Though I would love to see some data.

 

[Signal-11]

http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2009/t090423.htm

I am NOT a virologist and would consider myself specifically outside my area of expertise. If I were on an assignment, I normally kick the pathology up to someone else to handle, but here's what I understand.

The H1N1 subtype is known to circulate in pigs, humans and birds.

Direct contact with pigs has not been established for any of the cases. Maybe this boy in Mexico, but that hasn't been proved yet, either. The primary reason that this is being called swine flue is because two of the four pieces are from known swine influenza viruses. This makes it more likely that the recombination took place in a pig and not a bird or a human, but no one is so much more likely that it's a sure bet.

The evolutionary history of this particular virus is probably extremely convoluted and anyone currently speaking to that history is making educated guesses at best.

And yeah, FJ218700, you're right that this is a virus, not bacterium and the chances of this particular combination happening are very small indeed, if you're looking for the instance possibility of this happening at any given time. On the other hand, considering the number of simultaneous infection/co-infection events with multiple subtypes circulating in three different reservoirs, you will find that this type of event is inevitable over time. Then, you say, if were to appear, where would it most likely happen? In a place where domesticated animals live in close proximity to humans, possibly on a migratory bird path. A little ex post facto, but on a gut level, makes sense to me.

 

[FJ218700]

USAMRIID might be in on the action too?

possibly, not in-house though. All research has been put on hold for the last few months to make a computerized inventory.

Then, you say, if were to appear, where would it most likely happen? In a place where domesticated animals live in close proximity to humans, possibly on a migratory bird path. A little ex post facto, but on a gut level, makes sense to me.

Yep, Mexico would be the most likely place.

Going to be interesting how this plays out in Rio, Santiago, etc. over the winter.

 

[Signal-11]

No idea who the PIs are.

I would guess/assume that the CDC labs have been working on it, no? USAMRIID might be in on the action too?

From the limited info available thus far, antigenic shift is my guesstimate as of now.

Though I would love to see some data.

Haha, you guys are thinking way too academically if you think there's a single lead agency and a single PI or group for this. Once your outbreak makes it on the front page of the BBC, game over. Everyone and no one has control.

Theoretically, for a potential pandemic, coordinating role/lead agency is WHO with each country's public health organization handling it within their respective countries. Supposed to be a lot of other things, but mostly it ends up being the dissemination of information that's outdated by the time it get through their reporting process. That's for countries that have a functional public health system. For those without, it becomes a little more complicated.

I think the CDC NCPDCID team only arrived in Mexico a few days ago. I imagine every sub department is working overtime, but if you want to look into the actual lab work, I wouldn't have a clue.

 

[PlaceofDis]

link?

one of the better articles i've read about it even though i know very little on the subject:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news...-the-outbreak-an-influenza-biology-primer.ars

 

[pilotError]

This is getting a little crazy. Just got an automated phone call that they quarantined two family's in my town, but the kids don't go to public school. A little too close to home

 

[Legolamb]

.....and now for something completely different. From a cognitive perspective (i.e., mine) having a different way of representing knowledge, like music, may be more important than it seems......

...Using computer programs he created himself, as well as a commercial product, Zielinski composed his song by assigning instruments and musical notes to various properties of the protein.
Zielinski took the various categories of amino acids, the building blocks of the protein, and assigned each a different instrument -- piano, organ, low synthesizer, percussion. The melody was created by assigning notes to specific amino acids. Each beat of the song also corresponds to one of numerous amino acids.
The work was done entirely with a computer and took about six hours Tuesday, he said"....http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/29/swine.flu.song.music/index.html

http://stephan-zielinski.com/
Swine flu has been sequenced. *More out of curiosity than anything else, I wrote code to translate a key gene into a piece of ambient music:
Swine Flu Hemagglutinin (mp3, 6.7 megabytes)
The algorithm I used is a bit complicated, but just in case you’re curious: since the gene is expressed as a surface protein antibodies can sense, it’s considered as a string of amino acids. *Each beat corresponds to one amino acid, and the piece is in 3/4 time, so each six measures would correspond to five turns around the alpha structure. *(I’m weaseling because I haven’t the foggiest idea how the protein actually gets folded.) *Amino acids with side chains that are neither aromatic not aliphatic control the piano and organ: the nine non-hydrophobics the piano, and the four hydrophobics the organ. The three amino acids with aliphatic side chains control the low synthesizer, while the four with aromatics control the percussion. *Strictly speaking, this is a version of swine flu hemagglutinin, FJ966952:
MKAILVVMLYTFATANADTLCIGYHANNSTDTVDTVLEKNVTVTHSVNLLEDKHNGKLCK
LRGVAPLHLGKCNIAGWILGNPECESLSTASSWSYIVETSSSDNGTCYPGDFIDYEELRE
QLSSVSSFERFEIFPKTSSWPNHDSNKGVTAACPHAGAKSFYKNLIWLVKKGNSYPKLSK
SYINDKGKEVLVLWGIHHPSTSADQQSLYQNADAYVFVGSSRYSKKFKPEIAIRPKVRDQ
EGRMNYYWTLVEPGDKITFEATGNLVVPRYAFAMERNAGSGIIISDTPVHDCNTTCQTPK
GAINTSLPFQNIHPITIGKCPKYVKSTKLRLATGLRNVPSIQSRGLFGAIAGFIEGGWTG
MVDGWYGYHHQNEQGSGYAADLKSTQNAIDEITNKVNSVIEKMNTQFTAVGKEFNHLEKR
IENLNKKVDDGFLDIWTYNAELLVLLENERTLDYHDSNVKNLYEKVRSQLKNNAKEIGNG
CFEFYHKCDNTCMESVKNGTYDYPKYSEEAKLNREEIDGVKLESTRIYQILAIYSTVASS
LVLVVSLGAISFWMCSNGSLQCRICI

 

[irishgrizzly]

Essentially, if you get this flu - keep hydrated, stay home and rest, and let your immune system to try battle it out.

Isn't the kicker that the better your immune system is, the higher your chance of death? Because it takes over immune system response and sends it into overdrive. Meaning the younger healthy people are in greater danger. Or is that not know yet?

 

[Drumjim85]

In addition to UIL events being canceled across the whole state. A few schools in the North Texas area are closed until May 11th (not sure why that date)

 

[drewsof07]

Or is that not know yet?

I don't believe they've established high risk demographics yet. However those among the dead do include young adults who normally have the best immune systems. Normally the flu affects old and young. "Newly bred and the nearly dead" as it were.

 

[kainjow]

Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu

Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said.​

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Isn't the kicker that the better your immune system is, the higher your chance of death? Because it takes over immune system response and sends it into overdrive. Meaning the younger healthy people are in greater danger. Or is that not know yet?

That was the hallmark of Spanish influenza, and the reason why it killed so many young adults - with that strain, the stronger your immune system the worse it hit you. I've not read that this is the case with swine flu, but we'll see what happens.

 

[Signal-11]

Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu

Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said.​

As I mentioned above, this is just about one of the most asinine things I have ever heard.

 

[Music_Producer]

That was the hallmark of Spanish influenza, and the reason why it killed so many young adults - with that strain, the stronger your immune system the worse it hit you. I've not read that this is the case with swine flu, but we'll see what happens.

Hmm, I wonder if we all took corticosteroids (which would weaken the immune system) - maybe we would then catch the flu but not die from it...

 

[iBlue]

let's just hope it doesn't get to China or India. Even if the mortaility rate is as low as 1 in 1000, in such population centers there could easily be deaths in the 1000s.

The problem will be widespread use of Tamiflu and Relenza and the subsequent emergence of resistant variants next fall.

Or any big city, especially those with very crowded public transport such as the London Underground. I was on the tube reading about swine flu in the paper just as some jerk was coughing and sneezing nearby. Made me really uneasy and all too aware of just how badly something could spread in such an environment.

On a quick news brief on TV last night there was all this gloom and doom scariness and I worry that the media is going to cause a panic. Panic is often a bigger problem than the problem itself.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Hmm, I wonder if we all took corticosteroids (which would weaken the immune system) - maybe we would then catch the flu but not die from it...

Nah, we'd just die of something else then.

In any case, this immune system thing is – I believe – a hallmark of only some strains of flu. It's uncertain yet as to whether or not this current strain of H1N1 is one of them.

On a quick news brief on TV last night there was all this gloom and doom scariness and I worry that the media is going to cause a panic. Panic is often a bigger problem than the problem itself.

Indeed. While a potentially deadly flu pandemic is naturally a cause for concern, it's important everyone is sensible about this.

 

[drewsof07]

just as some jerk was coughing and sneezing nearby. Made me really uneasy and all too aware of just how badly something could spread in such an environment.

Did he look anything like this? LOL

On a quick news brief on TV last night there was all this gloom and doom scariness and I worry that the media is going to cause a panic. Panic is often a bigger problem than the problem itself.

YES! Although I do feel its good to educate people, scaring the schit out of them is an entirely different story (although the popular thing to do).

 

[Eanair]

Regarding the immune system being a liability rather than an asset for this particular strain:

Early on, some news agencies I listened to were reporting (though in hindsight, speculating seems a better word) that because the deaths in Mexico were mostly young adults, that this influenza was behaving like the 1918 "Spanish flu" pandemic - and that the deaths were caused by cytokine storm (the hyper immune response) in the young adults.

The official CDC stance on this; however, is that this influenza is behaving as the seasonal influenza behaves, and there's "insufficient information to date about the clinical complications of this varient of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus infection."

It very well could be that after more testing, they determine that yes, the young adults in Mexico died from a cytokine storm reaction, and that this strain is behaving like the 1918 one with a substantial number of deaths being young healthy adults, but right now, they don't believe they have enough data to make such a declaration.

So, could be, but not confirmed yet.

I'm pretty sure that if it is confirmed that this strain has the potential to cause cytokine storm (and the deaths in Mexico were caused by cytokine storm), the news agencies will be all over it.

There is insufficient information to date about clinical complications of this variant of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus infection. Among persons infected with previous variants of swine influenza virus, clinical syndromes have ranged from mild respiratory illness, to lower respiratory tract illness, dehydration, or pneumonia. Deaths caused by previous variants of swine influenza have occasionally occurred. Although data on the spectrum of illness is not yet available for this new variant of swine-origin influenza A(H1N1), clinicians should expect complications to be similar to seasonal influenza: exacerbation of underlying chronic medical conditions, upper respiratory tract disease (sinusitis, otitis media, croup) lower respiratory tract disease (pneumonia, bronchiolitis, status asthmaticus), cardiac (myocarditis, pericarditis), musculoskeletal (myositis, rhabdomyolysis), neurologic (acute and post-infectious encephalopathy, encephalitis, febrile seizures, status epilepticus), toxic shock syndrome, and secondary bacterial pneumonia with or without sepsis.

http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/identifyingpatients.htm

 

[leekohler]

Hey guys- what are the symptoms? I haven't been able to find anything on that. I have a friend who was home with 102 degree temp yesterday and is still home today.

 

[koobcamuk]

Hey guys- what are the symptoms? I haven't been able to find anything on that. I have a friend who was home with 102 degree temp yesterday and is still home today.

Holy crap man, is he snorting at all?

 

[Drumjim85]

Hey guys- what are the symptoms? I haven't been able to find anything on that. I have a friend who was home with 102 degree temp yesterday and is still home today.

The same as a normal flu, except it might get worse. (ya, that was real descriptive )

edit: no one "holy crapped" when i said my cousin had it