May 2, 2009 Swine Flu Update: Better news

Mexico has lowered the estimated number of deaths linked to the AH1N1 (swine flu) virus from 176 to 101. The number of confirmed deaths linked to AH1N1 is only 16.

There have been no deaths linked to the illness since April 30. And while more than 700 AH1N1 infections have been identified worldwide, epidemiologists studying the strain in the US suggest that this is not a particularly robust flu, genetically speaking.

One interesting - albeit somewhat confusing - data point is that few family members of Mexico's swine flu cases Mexico are contracting the virus. So how did the numbers of suspected cases grow so high so quickly? Or did they? There is still much that is not known.

The Guardian in the UK interviewed a flu victim who described the first days of their illness as a severe health situation:  ¨The first two or three days were pretty horrible...It is very scary to be told you have swine flu after hearing about it on the news. Each day developed into worse symptoms, starting with the chest pains and then the fever.¨

This description of the gravity of this patient´s illness may give credence to the idea put forward by some scientists that the difference between the apparent severity in Mexico and other places is the size of the sample, not that Mexicans are affected differently by the virus.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama expressed hope that this flu may be no more deadly than the normal seasonal flu to which we are accustomed.

Today, however, he continued to express caution, saying in his weekly Saturday morning address that, ¨This is a new strain of flu virus, and because we haven´t developed an immunity to it, it has more potential to do harm. Unlike the various strains of animal flu that have emerged in the past, it´s a flu that is spreading from human to human. This creates the potential for a pandemic, which is why we are acting quickly and aggressively.¨

In an opinion piece published yesterday in El Universal, Dr. José Sarukhán, one of the world´s top ecologists, reminded readers that viruses reproduce and mutate very quickly. A weak flu, in other words, could become stronger over time.

This is one of the possibilities worrying scientists: that the flu will just kick along now but come back stronger and more deadly during the fall flu season.

Dr. Sarukhán goes on to suggest that ecological disruption is one of the factors that fosters the transmission of viruses from one species to another. He indicts agroindustry, like pig farms around the world and including the one in the Perote Valley, for being more focused on their bottom lines than on the health of humans or the environment.

It may take some time for us to glean all of the lessons from the current AH1N1 crisis, but if it focuses the world's population on all of the potential sources of virulent disease, including industrial livestock farming, we may be able to begin making the world safer and healthier.