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Dr. David Brown is the medical writer for the Washington Post, and does a terrific job of it, too. This weekend Dr. Brown has written two excellent articles on the H1N1 virus that deserve your attention.
The first one explores the pandemic potential of this newly emerging virus, with particular emphasis on H1N1’s predilection for the young – a hallmark of previous pandemics.
Age of Flu Victims Has Big Implications
Scientists Say Relative Youth of Ill People Is Evidence of Pandemic Potential
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 17, 2009The swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus that burst into public consciousness a month ago is starting to behave like a mixture of its infamous, pandemic-causing predecessors.
It seems to have a predilection for young adults, as did its notorious ancestor, the 1918 Spanish influenza. Many of the young victims who have become deathly ill turned out to have other medical problems -- a phenomenon first clearly seen with the 1957 Asian flu. H1N1 is spreading easily in North America but sputtering in Europe, just as Hong Kong flu did in 1968. And as in the mini-pandemic of Russian flu in 1977, some people appear to have a degree of immunity.
Exactly how swine flu fits into the pantheon of flu pandemics will not be known for a while. It will take months -- and many more victims -- for its full personality and behavior to emerge. But one thing is clear: This is a lot more than just seasonal flu out of season.
Finding `painless’ ways to explain the science behind the influenza virus is always a challenge.
Dr. Brown does an admirable job here of demystifying a lot of the `med-tech virology’ talk as he takes us on a historic tour of how the H1N1 virus has evolved over the last century.
Medical writing for the public doesn’t get much better than this, folks.
Highly recommended.
How Time and Mutations Engineered the New H1N1 Strain
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 11, 2009Once Upon a Time there was a little flu virus. It was probably born in Kansas in late 1917 or 1918, although nobody is really sure. Its name was H1N1. It grew up to be very wicked.
The story of the new strain of swine influenza now circling the world actually starts a lot farther back than the 20th century, but the year the "Spanish influenza" appeared is a good place to start.
From the second week in March 1918, when soldiers at an Army camp in Kansas began to get ill, until the final mini-waves of 1920, the Spanish flu infected about 97 percent of the people on Earth and killed at least 50 million of them.
The virus probably came from waterfowl, which carry dozens of different flu viruses. At some point, either before or after it got into human beings, the virus got into pigs, a species that can be infected by avian and human strains. It has stayed in swines ever since, and in people for almost as long.
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