July 13, 2009

experts comment on Nature swine flu paper

Tests on the H1N1 flu virus show that it penetrates deeper into the respiratory system than the regular seasonal flu virus, and as a result causes more damage and has a more prolonged effect than seasonal flu.

Prof Ian Jones, Director of Research, University of Reading, said:

“This complete analysis of the current H1N1 is what we’ve been waiting for. For a number of measures it shows that the new virus is more serious than seasonal H1N1 but that, nonetheless, the major outcome to infection is recovery. For the few cases of severe infection the data should help in the clinical management of hospitalised patients.”

Prof Wendy Barclay, Chair in Influenza Virology, Imperial College London, said:

“This is an absolutely solid piece of thorough research that confirms and extends what was published in Science express last week. By comparison with a seasonal human H1N1 virus, it is shown that the swine origin H1N1 infect cells deeper into the respiratory tract. It must be borne in mind that typical circulating human strains of H1N1 have been associated with rather mild illness in recent years, and that the swine origin H1N1 may be behaving in these animal models more alike the type of H3N2 viruses that caused a pandemic in 1968.”