AMERICAN FEVER

I'm jealous of you, Peter Christian Hall. You blog about swine flu for the Huffington Post. You wrote a movie with a Gang of Four soundtrack. You've visited (nearly) 50 countries. And last but not least, you've written an online blog novel about pandemic flu entitled American Fever.

You're genius, Peter Christian Hall. I can't stop reading you!

Facts about Viruses - Swine Flu (NYT)

The NYT had a great piece last Tuesday about viruses and Swine Flu. Here's part of it:

"The current outbreak shows how complex and mysterious the evolution of viruses is. Some viruses use DNA, like we do, to encode their genes. Others, like the influenza virus, use single-strand RNA. But viruses all have one thing in common, said Roland Wolkowicz, a molecular virologist at San Diego State University: they all reproduce by disintegrating and then reforming.

A human flu virus, for example, latches onto a cell in the lining of the nose or throat. It manipulates a receptor on the cell so that the cell engulfs it, whereupon the virus’s genes are released from its protein shell. The host cell begins making genes and proteins that spontaneously assemble into new viruses. 'No other entity out there is able to do that,” Dr. Wolkowicz said. “To me, this is what defines a virus.'

The sheer number of viruses on Earth is beyond our ability to imagine. “In a small drop of water there are a billion viruses,” Dr. Wolkowicz said. Virologists have estimated that there are a million trillion trillion viruses in the world’s oceans. A tank of 100 to 200 liters of sea water may hold 100,000 genetically distinct viruses.

Viruses are diverse because they can mutate very fast and can mix genes. They sometimes pick up genes from their hosts, and they can swap genes with other viruses. Some viruses, including flu viruses, carry out a kind of mixing known as reassortment. If two different flu viruses infect the same cell, the new copies of their genes get jumbled up as new viruses are assembled."

Read the whole story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/health/05virus.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=virus&st=cse

Breezy, with a Chance of Cytokine Storms...

Cytokine Storm is my new least favorite phrase.

Here's a primer for you:

http://www.fluwikie.co/index.php?n=Science.PrimerCytokineStorm

And please bookmark this site. It's an important one:

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

holy swine flu, batman!

it's time to break out the face masks!

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tests have confirmed that eight New York City schoolchildren had a type A influenza virus, likely swine flu, city Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said Saturday.

Samples have been sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for further testing to see if they are indeed the unusual H1N1 flu strain that has killed up to 68 people in Mexico and may have sickened others, Frieden told a news conference.

"In every single case, illness was mild. Many of the children are feeling better," Frieden said.

"What is concerning about this is that it is likely swine flu and second that it is spreading person to person," Frieden said. He added, "We have seen no increase citywide in flu-like cases."

About 100 students at a school in the New York City borough of Queens became sick last week, prompting the tests, according to local media reports.

A quick throat swab test can tell if a person has influenza but further testing is usually required to determine the strain.

The World Health Organization has declared the swine flu outbreaks in Mexico and the United States a "public health event of international concern," but says more information is needed before raising the pandemic threat level.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed eight people from California and Texas were infected with the H1N1 strain, but all had recovered.

Pandemic Watch 2009

So the news is that avian flu is mutating into something less virulent--and therefore more able to become pandemic. This might make you reconsider your trip to Egypt this year:

http://tinyurl.com/cduhwt

p.s. there is also apparently a board game called Pandemic which I would like to check out.