Study Uncovers Cause of Flu Epidemics
Penn State University has published some high level findings out of their Biology department related to infectious disease dynamics.
According to biologists, the exchange of genetic material between two closely related strains of the influenza A virus may have caused the 1947 and 1951 human flu epidemics. This understanding could help explain why some strains cause major pandemics and others lead to seasonal epidemics.
Until now, it was believed that while human influenza viruses swap genes with influenza viruses that infect birds and causes severe pandemics, such as the ‘Spanish’ flu of 1918, the ‘Asian’ flu of 1957, and the ‘Hong Kong’ flu of 1968, viral mutation leads to regular influenza epidemics. But it has been a mystery why there are sometimes very severe epidemics – like the ones in 1947 and 1951 – that look and act like pandemics, even though no human-bird viral cross-species event occurred.
From reading this paper I’m not coming away with any better level of confidence that we’ll have a solid vaccine any time soon because they still warn that there’s lots more work ahead to stay abreast of multiple strains co-circulating and exchanging genetic material.
It’s almost as if the answer is to blast all known viruses simultaneously then start hunting down the few strains remaining, trying to keep up with them as they mutate and render yesterday’s vaccine useless.
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I studied that stuff…
I had an old teacher say that the day you killed the last dangerous virus, another one would appear the next day.
The DNA of nearly all living beings bear copies of millions year-old knocked out viruses that can conceivably come back with the advent of an unfortunate mutation…
…I think it’s better to work at better hygiene conditions and shoring one’s defenses than aiming at eliminating influenza.
Spoken like someone in the industry.
What would be cool is that when we have a full understanding of the human genome if we’re able to identify those dormant viri and deactivate them. Of course then you have the apes and the swine and the birds you have to go after next but at the rate we’re eating everything alive or flushing them out of their natural habitats, I think we’re taking care of that cross-species thing the old fashioned way.
Actually I’m not ‘industry’ I work in a human Genetics lab trying to work out how people react differently to drug treatments in order to (what’s the line my boss use?):
“Usher a new era of Personalized Medecine”
How’s that for an industry line
I just don’t believe that eliminating viruses and bacteria is the way to go… we need stuff to fight to keep our immune systems in working order and adaptable.
I know it’s weird coming from a microbiologist, but we need germs and viruses to challenge us.
I say we kill the super bad ones that we can kill (Small pox was a good move) and we shore up our defenses for the rest!