It turns out the swine flu outbreak may be a little bit less deadly than we thought. Here’s the latest from the Los Angeles Times:
As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza — at least in its current form — isn’t shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.
….When the current virus was first identified, the similarities between it and the 1918 flu seemed ominous.
Both arose in the spring at the tail end of the flu season. Both seemed to strike people who were young and healthy instead of the elderly and infants. Both were H1N1 strains, so called because they had the same types of two key proteins that are largely responsible for a virus’ ability to infect and spread.
Richard Webby, an influenza virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, told the Times, “This virus doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus,” which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide.
Among those 50 million were my grandmother’s two sisters. So this is good to hear. But wash your hands anyway, OK?
