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Helen Branswell, intrepid medical reporter for the Canadian Press, brings us a review of the potential `up side’ to the pandemic of 2009, citing an number of possible scenarios that could be seen as a silver lining of sorts from this influenza outbreak.
As with any Branswell article, this one is well worth following the link and reading in its entirety.
Experts say pandemic could have a silver lining if it knocks out other viruses
By Helen Branswell Medical Reporter (CP)
TORONTO — When you think of a flu pandemic, the images that come to mind are of people sick and people dying.
But influenza experts quietly admit there may be a silver lining - or several - to the H1N1 pandemic that erupted this year. Not just in the event itself, which was milder than feared, but also in the viral legacy it may leave.
In the wake of this pandemic, flu vaccine could be easier to make or could cover more targets. A tricky problem of drug resistance could disappear. And the toll influenza takes on the elderly could conceivably ease, at least for awhile.
Before going too far down What-If Road, however, it's important to note that predicting influenza's path is a mug's game. The longer people study it, the less likely they are to try to guess what influenza viruses may do.
"I don't know - right now everything's a possibility as far as I'm concerned," Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, cautions when asked about what the flu landscape might look like in the aftermath of this pandemic.
Still, even experts who share that understanding are thinking about some possibilities.
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