All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.
H1N1 continues to spread and the World Health Organization has confirmed a case in Sweden and one in Guatemala.
For light relief, today we learned from Reuters that “Afghanistan’s only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats”.
On a more serious note, vaccine production is now on the cards. The WHO’s Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research, has also told pharma companies to get ready for mass vaccine production, in case it is needed.
“What we have recommended for the timing at present, which was a technical recommendation for all manufacturers is to put everything in place to be able to start manufacturing vaccines,” she says (VOA).
However, as USA Today highlights, another big question is whether the H1N1 vaccine should be made for the coming flu season:
Already, companies are working on a seasonal flu vaccine for the fall that does not include the H1N1 strain. Which strains are to be included in those vaccines, or whether a new vaccine is needed, is decided by manufacturers with guidance mainly from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
The problem in this decision is that the virus could get worse after this vaccine is made.
“If you were just to bet on the odds, you would bet H1N1 would abate in the summer and return in the winter,” Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Tennessee, told the Baltimore Sun. “The illness produced, so far, is really quite mild. But the question would be – as it circulates among humans in the Southern Hemisphere [in their winter flu season] – could it pick up a virulence gene that is capable of producing severe disease?”
The Washington Post points out that any vaccine against pandemic H1N1 would likely go to developed countries. According to the Post the world capacity for making such a vaccine is between one and two billion doses, and the United States has contracts allowing it to buy at least 600 million doses.
Meanwhile, ScienceInsider is reporting that the herd of pigs in Canada that caught the flu from a human actually didn’t. “As these were the first pigs ever found to harbour the virus, this obviously raises the possibility that they infected humans and played a role in the origin of the outbreak,” writes Jon Cohen.
Image top: Getty
Image middle: WHO, as of 6 May, 18.00 GMT