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CIDRAP: H1N1 Lessons Learned

 

 

 

# 4521

 

 

Last night CIDRAP (The Center For Infectious Disease Research And Policy) published what they promise will be the first in a series of special reports on lessons learned from the H1N1 pandemic. 

 

Penned by News Editor Robert Roos, this first installment covers a lot of territory, and it well worth your time to read.

 


CIDRAP also maintains some of the best - and most up-to-date - information on the H1N1 pandemic in their overview entitled Novel H1N1 Influenza (Swine Flu).  

 

This is a resource I turn to often.

 

Robert Roos interviews Columbia Virology Professor Vincent Racaniello, Dan Jernigan of the CDC’s Influenza Division, chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, William Schaffner, MD, chair of IDSA’s pandemic flu task force Andrew Pravia, M.D., and Associate Professor of Medicine and chair of ACIP’s influenza working group Kathleen M. Neuzil, MD, MPH for this piece.

Some of the topics addressed include:

 

Geographic expectations

Wave pattern

Impact on the population

Health system stressed

The clinical picture

Obesity emerges as risk factor

Danger for pregnant women

Other lessons learned

Outlook for next season

Highly recommended. 

 

I’ll just reproduce the opening to the CIDRAP article.  Follow the link to read it in its entirety.

 

 

H1N1 LESSONS LEARNED


Pandemic underscored influenza's unpredictability

Robert Roos * News Editor

Editor's Note: This is the first of a series of articles reviewing the world's experience with pandemic H1N1 influenza and what we've learned in the past year. Look for further installments in the days to come.

 

Apr 23, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – A year's experience with the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus has underscored the endless unpredictability of flu.

 

The virus and the resulting illness defied expectations on many levels. It was first detected in North America, not Southeast Asia. Unlike the pathogens that caused previous pandemics, the virus was not a new subtype, but rather an H1N1 strain, making it a cousin of a seasonal flu strain that's been around for decades.

 

Unlike seasonal flu, though, the illness hit children and nonelderly adults much more than people over 65. It was relatively mild for most people, unlike the 1918 flu or the devastating disease associated with H5N1 avian flu, which had heavily shaped pandemic preparations. But it killed far more children and young people than seasonal flu typically does, with the vast majority of deaths involving people younger than 60.

(Continue . . .)

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