New swine flu with pandemic potential

[kadiot]

White House Coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that U.S. health officials are keeping an eye on a new strain of flu carried by pigs in China that has characteristics of the 2009 H1N1 virus and 1918 pandemic flu.

The virus, which scientists are calling “G4 EA H1N1,” has not yet been shown to infect humans but it is exhibiting “reassortment capabilities,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a hearing.

“In other words, when you get a brand new virus that turns out to be a pandemic virus it’s either due to mutations and/or the reassortment or exchanges of genes,” he told lawmakers. “And they’re seeing virus in swine, in pigs now, that have characteristics of the 2009 H1N1, of the original 1918, which many of our flu viruses have remnants of that in it, as well as segments from other hosts, like swine.”

(Excerpt from the following article)
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/dr-...raits-of-2009-h1n1-and-1918-pandemic-flu.htmlIt should not be any surprise that there is readily available information (albeit preliminary) about emerging viruses because of the amount of previous information and new and efficient technology in gene sequencing.

Thoughts?

 

[PhanthomJay]

I hope they can develop a vaccine for it easier than for the SARS CoV 2.

 

[gleem]

I hope we have learned something from the Covid-19 experience.

 

[Astronuc]

It should not be any surprise that there is readily available information (albeit preliminary) about emerging viruses because of the amount of previous information and new and efficient technology in gene sequencing.

Thoughts?

Looking retrospectively, here is a paper by Fauci from 2005.

Fauci, Anthony S. MD, Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: The Perpetual Challenge, Academic Medicine, Volume 80, Issue 12, December 2005, pp. 1079-1085
https://journals.lww.com/academicme...nd_Reemerging_Infectious_Diseases__The.2.aspx

Public health officials once suggested that it might someday be possible to “close the book” on the study and treatment of infectious diseases. However, it is now clear that endemic diseases as well as newly emerging ones (e.g., severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS]), reemerging ones (e.g., West Nile virus), and even deliberately disseminated infectious diseases (e.g., anthrax from bioterrorism) continue to pose a substantial threat throughout the world. Over the past several decades, the global effort to identify and characterize infectious agents, decipher the underlying pathways by which they cause disease, and develop preventive measures and treatments for many of the world’s most dangerous pathogens has helped control many endemic diseases.

But despite considerable progress, infectious diseases continue to present significant challenges as new microbial threats emerge and reemerge. HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, SARS, West Nile virus, Marburg virus, and bioterrorism are examples of some of the emerging and reemerging threats. In responding to these ongoing challenges, a new paradigm in countermeasure development is needed. In the past, U.S. government-sponsored biomedical researchers have focused on basic research and concept development, leaving product development to the pharmaceutical industry. Increasingly, however, the government has become involved in more targeted countermeasure development efforts. In this regard, partnerships between government, industry, and academia are necessary as we struggle to maintain and update our armamentarium in the struggle to outwit the microbes that pose a never-ending threat to mankind.

Increase in population comes with destruction of jungles and forests, loss of habit for wild animals, and concentration of domesticated animals for food. These practices lead to increased exposure to pathogens. In some underdeveloped nations, a growing problem has been trafficking of wildlife, and in many cities, wet markets selling exotic animals for food in unsanitary conditions.

How have we done with infections diseases?

The World Health Report 1996 - Fighting disease, fostering development, published by WHO, states that infectious diseases are the world's leading cause of premature death. Of about 52 million deaths from all causes in 1995, more than 17 million were due to infectious diseases, including about 9 million deaths in young children. Up to half the world's population of 5.72 billion are at risk of many endemic diseases. In addition, millions of people are developing cancers as a direct result of preventable infections by bacteria and viruses, the report says.

https://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/press_release/en/

According to the World Health Organization’s 2004 World Health Report, infectious diseases accounted for about 26% of the 57 million (or about 14.8 million) deaths worldwide in 2002. Collectively, infectious diseases are the second leading cause of death globally (following cardiovascular disease), but among young people (those under the age of 50) infections are overwhelmingly the leading cause of death.

So it looks like some progress was made between 1996 and 2002.

Disease outbreak news

• https://www.who.int/csr/don/01-august-2020-yellow-fever-french-guiana-france/en/
  1 August 2020
• https://www.who.int/csr/don/23-july-2020-plague-drc/en/
  23 July 2020
• https://www.who.int/csr/don/09-jul-2020-influenza-a-brazil/en/
  9 July 2020
• https://www.who.int/csr/don/02-jul-2020-mers-saudi-arabia/en/
  2 July 2020
• https://www.who.int/csr/don/26-June-2020-ebola-drc/en/
  26 June 2020

Pandemic and epidemic diseases - https://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/en/
https://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/introduction/en/index1.html
Neglected tropical diseases - https://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/resources/en/

Putting mortality in context.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death