Swine flu-HIV could devastate human race

[Guest guest]

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Swine flu-HIV could devastate human race

By MARTIN SIEFFPublished: May 4, 2009 at 2:24 PM

WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- The global swine flu threat is receding, but it could

return in a far more deadly form in the fall.

The warning was given Monday by Dr. Margaret Chan, head of the 193-nation World

Health Organization, in an interview with the Financial Times of London.

Chan warned that the swine flu virus known as H1N1 that caused the Mexico

City-centered outbreak could return in the fall as a far more dangerous

mutation.

After last week's warnings, school closings across the United States and the

near shuttering of Mexico City, the current outbreak seems to have peaked. The

WHO said Monday there were 985 confirmed cases of H1N1 spread over 20 countries.

There have been 25 confirmed deaths.

As of Monday there were 286 reported cases of swine flu in 36 U.S. states. Both

U.S. and Mexican authorities expressed confidence that the spread of the disease

was slowing down.

The World Health Organization said the higher number of reports of cases from

Mexico -- 590 -- comes from testing of previously gathered samples.

The four strands of the swine flu virus come from pigs, humans and birds.

Experts believe that the virus mutated into its current form in the bodies of

pigs. Health authorities are particularly worried that the capability to mutate

already exhibited by the virus could eventually let it combine with the human

immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

That could cause a lethally dangerous global health problem on a comparable

scale to the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic that eventually infected more than

500 million people -- more than one-quarter of the human race -- and killed 10

percent of them. That death toll of 50 million was more than five times the

total fatalities of World War I. The epidemic killed more Americans than died in

World War I and World II combined.

Canadian health officials said Sunday they have confirmed that the H1N1 swine

flu virus had, in at least one case, leaped back into a herd of 200 pigs. That

raised the possibility it could mutate again in pigs and move back into the

human population.

Chan told the Financial Times that, given the potential scale of the possible

threat, the World Health Organization did not overreact to the swine flu threat.

While the number of new cases hasn't grown as fast as expected, Chan said the

disease could return in a few months in a much more lethal strain. She also said

she would rather be over-prepared than have to answer questions about why the

World Health Organization didn't take sufficient action.

The reaction of the U.S. government headed by President Barack Obama and

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was measured, restrained and less

tough than that of the 27-nation European Union or of nations like China in

closing cross-border traffic or imposing comprehensive screening.

The Chinese government was horrified at the possibility that swine flu could

spread among its 1.3 billion people, almost 20 percent of the human race. Its

emergency measures, however, have infuriated the Mexican government and led to a

major diplomatic row between the two nations.

Mexican travelers were quarantined in hotels, and the Mexican ambassador to

China was not allowed to meet with one group he tried to visit. The anger of the

Mexican government at the Chinese measures, however, has obscured the real

possibility that the global impact of swine flu has been limited precisely

because of the swift measures that were taken globally to contain it.

The global swine flu crisis recalls the so-called millennium bug, which was

supposed to crash computers around the world as the machines' internal clocks

turned over Jan. 1, 2000. That didn't happen, but some experts said that was

because the precautions taken helped prevent the problem. Some said there wasn't

a problem to begin with. The whole controversy revolved around a negative

proposition that couldn't be proved.

Skeptics are already arguing that the global fever over swine flu should fall

into the same category. However, human history is filled with little-known but

horrifying examples of global pandemics from diseases like Spanish flu, cholera,

syphilis or bubonic plague that swept the world, killing hundreds of millions of

people, destroying civilizations and reshaping the demographic patterns of the

planet.

In a modern world of unprecedented population scale and social mobility, Chan's

caution therefore appears completely justified. The alternative is to risk a

biological disaster that could eventually prove more devastating than a

thermonuclear war.

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Guest guest]

" Of course the question is if the HIV portion would remain active and behave and

the pure form does. I know it has combined with tuberculosis, but I don't know

if HIV remains fully active or if some of the DNA is simply there. "

There could be any one of a number of mutations. I can think of three off the

top of my head:

1) Something that is the flu, but which cannot be killed because the flu virus

takes on the tenacity of the HIV virus.

2) Something that starts with the flu, but then manifests itself as AIDS years

down the road.

3) Something that is HIV, but happens in the same space of time as the flu

virus. In other words, someone would get all symptoms of AIDS in an eight day

period and die at the end of that time. In this particular case, an " AIDS

cocktail " would harly have time to take effect.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

said, " If they become commonplace, we will have lost the advantage of

most of a century of medical advancement because we will be back to square one

against communicable diseases. "

From the biomedical standpoint, this has already happened. The research that I

work on is back at square one, we are back to the research and development of

new antibiotics which are not like any already marketed.

said, " If HIV becomes airborne, we've pretty well had it and it will

be because of our medical/political intervention. "

True, we would be in some deep trouble if most any virus that is spread through

bodily fluids were to become airborne. Now, to stay positive, the likelihood of

this occurring is slim. Most mutations or genetic rearrangements or genetic

exchanges that virus and bacteria go through are lethal to the bacteria or

virus. And even the ones that are not, the chances of them happening in a

productive manner are not in the bugs favor. This absolutely does not mean that

we should slow things down research wise. Especially since now that we got

ourselves into the predicament with these drug resistant bacteria, we need to

find a way to get out without the annihilation part.

says, " We could rediscover penicillin maybe, but it would be useless. "

I find this very interesting that you bring that up. From my standpoint in

research it would seem as though phasing out current drugs and phasing in new

ones and then switching back to drugs such as penicillin seems promising. Most

bugs lose their resistance after a small number of generations, so theoretically

penicillin could work again but we need to knock it out of the market for a few

years first. To do that we need a replacement for the time.

All in all, the swine flu as it is right now (again from a medical/biomedical

standpoint) is not the problem that is plaguing doctors. What the doctors are

worried about is the idea that the next years flu tends to take on the last main

virus from the previous season. That means that this autumns flu could bring

the swine flu characteristics back only worse (or it might not be as bad).

Viruses are very unpredictable and their mutations tend to make them hard to

deal with, so I guess while the companies are working on the next batch of

vaccines, we hold tight to our optimism.

~HK