Reassortant H3N2 virus detected in Pennsylvania & Indiana – Source CDC
# 5836
As a liveaboard sailor for several years on a very small -and extremely low-tech sailboat - I cruised without the modern luxuries of a LORAN, GPS, or even a depth meter. Navigation was pretty much dead reckoning, and thin water . . . well, you often didn’t know you were in it until you heard the sickening sound of your keel scraping bottom.
While in the beginning it was unnerving - and its true I did run aground `a few times’ - after a while I began to accept that there are things that I can neither see or control.
After that, sailing became a lot more enjoyable.
Later, when I moved up to a much larger 32’ DownEast cutter, I had both a LORAN and a fathometer. Suddenly I could see threats on the bottom that had previously (and often blissfully) remained hidden.
While knowing the depth of the water was certainly desirable, and undoubtedly contributed to safer operation of my vessel, shoaling numbers on the LCD readout could also suggest imminent hazards that ultimately failed to materialize.
Which is not unlike today, where increased disease surveillance, enhanced laboratory testing capabilities, and 24/7 internet reporting mean we often hear about disease threats far earlier than ever before.
Recently the CDC and the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported on the detection of 3 children with a novel H3N2 swine flu infection, while a fourth case was reported in Indiana (see CDC Update On The Pennsylvania Swine Flu Cases).
Although not unheard of, human infections by these novel swine flu viruses are considered pretty rare. Since 2005, we are aware of just over 2 dozen of them in the United States (see CDC SOIV page).
Most of the time, these viruses appear to be dead-end infections. A person is exposed to an infected animal, contracts the virus - but since it is not particularly well adapted to human physiology - does not pass it on.
Due to limited testing and surveillance over the years, how often that really happens is unknown. But it may be more common than we think.
And it is not only possible, but probably likely, that very limited low-level human-to-human transmission of these novel viruses may occur from time to time. There is circumstantial to suggest that may be the case in the recent case in Indiana.
The concern is that – like we saw with the 2009 H1N1 swine flu – a novel virus may adapt well enough to a human host to become easily transmissible. If that happens, and community immunity is low, and the virus is pathogenic in humans, a novel virus has the potential of sparking a pandemic.
So understandably, the CDC and and state public health agencies take these novel virus detections seriously. They conduct investigations to try to determine the source and to see if a virus has begun to transmit efficiently among humans.
So far the news on the Pennsylvania cluster remains encouraging. No new cases have been announced in more than a week. The investigation is ongoing, and so it is still possible that additional cases will be identified in the future.
This report from the Reading Eagle.
Novel virus strain in state is not outbreak, officials say
(EXCERPT)
"Everything that has come out so far suggests these are not easily transmittable," said Dr. Robert S. Jones, chief of infectious diseases at both St. Joseph Medical Center and Reading hospital. " People shouldn't panic about that strain."
The caveat to all this good news is that influenza viruses are notoriously unstable, constantly mutating and evolve over time.
A virus that is poorly transmissible today may not remain so tomorrow.
So vigilance is key.
Missing from our knowledge base is just how often novel viruses like these emerge, sputter, and die out without ever causing recognizable outbreaks. In time we may discover that happens far more often than we have previously believed.
Like a sailor with a new fathometer, better surveillance tools and lab techniques make us more keenly aware of dangers that previously `passed beneath our keel’ unnoticed.
Certainly not a bad thing, but they can alert us to threats that never fulminate.
While these sporadic cases rightfully capture our attention, we may discover that (some-many-or most) of them are akin to `incidental findings’ often found on an MRI or CT scan – and ultimately have very little bearing on the public’s health.
How seriously we should regard these scattered detections of novel virus infections is something that only more research, experience, and time will reveal.
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