A sick pig - swine flu where is it now?

Have you forgotten about swine flu? Perhaps you shouldn’t. Although the World Health Organisation has said the swine flu is over, its Global Influenza Surveillance Network remains with eyes wide open. In this podcast we will hear about a new research, led by Imperial College of London, which highlights the dangers caused by the mutation of this virus. Débora Miranda spoke to the author of the study.

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Transcript

Swine flu, H1N1, Mexico, pandemic influenza – in 2009, these words dominated the headlines worldwide. Thousands of people have caught the virus and hundreds have died. Today the pandemic isn’t considered active and people tend to forget about it. Are you still washing your hands twenty times a day? Probably not. But maybe you should. Because a new study has shown that the virus could come back – in a more dangerous form.

According to the World Health Organisation, there was a mutation of the virus in two out of every hundred infected people. I spoke to Professor Ten Feizi, from the Imperial College, who led a study about the dangers of this mutation.

Prof. Feizi:

“As you probably know, the virus tends to mutate, it’s a very changeable virus. And it is distinctly possible that it does actually change in the infected patient. Now, when we look at these mutants from these fatal cases, this tendency to bind to the 2/3 receptors is substantially enhanced – and that means that it has a greater predilection to go to the lung.”

Débora Miranda:

“And that depends on the person?”

Prof. Feizi:

“That depends not so much on the person because these structures are very common in everybody. It depends on the cell – the 2/6, which the seasonal virus binds to, the 2/6 receptors are found in the nose, in the throat, in the upper airway.”

Débora Miranda:

“Does it have anything to do with patients at risk?”

Prof. Feizi:

“No, these are things that are present in everybody. The 2/3 receptors are known for residing very deep in the lung.”

In other words: the so-called seasonal flu virus attaches to receptors that are found in our throat and nose, whereas the swine flu virus is much more attracted to receptors in the lungs.

As if the problem wasn’t bad enough, the researchers have found that the mutation of the virus makes it attach to other receptors: the ciliated cells. These cells look like a broom: the bristles have the function of brushing up the dust and bacteria all the way up to our mouth and nose, so we can dispose of them, for example by coughing. They are like cleaners in our body. You can now predict the danger: this new variant infects the ciliated cells, the cleaners become ill and so can’t clean anything. This means that the virus hangs around, having a greater chance of going down to the lungs. Professor Teizi explains that the consequences for the lungs are not only the viral or the bacterial pneumonia caused by the H1N1 as we first knew it…

Prof. Feizi:

“…but also greater predisposition to severe infection, severe consequences, because the normal clearance activity of these cells is damaged.”

The authors of this study believe that monitoring the progress of the virus is essential and that the Surveillance of the World Health Organisation is absolutely justified.

Prof. Feizi:

“When we know what happened in Mexico, there was a very rapid spread, a lot of fatalities and indeed and in this country too as you may know there were some fatalities of particularly unexpected of young, babies, children, healthy people, apart from people who had predisposing conditions.”

Therefore, if we have a more immune population – reached through vaccination – the virus becomes less able to infect. Professor Teizi’s advice is that vulnerable individuals, such as hospital workers, the elderly, and those who are offered the vaccine should take it – even if they think that it’s all a bit of an overreaction to the pandemic.

Prof. Feizi:

“A lot of people including some scientists not in the field may be thinking that this is exaggeration. What happened 2009 did happen and I think that a lot of people realise that this virus can suddenly change, this virus can develop new properties. We have to be prepared because it is impossible to predict what this virus will do.”

Débora Miranda for Elements Science

Other Elements articles in which you might be interested:

1. Freaking out over the flu