SWINE FLU: How Dangerous Is the H1N1 Virus Truly?

Scientists who are intensively studying the swine flu virus have concluded after the first tests that this hybrid flu strain, at least in its current form, is not mutating into a virus that could be as fatal as the strains of some previous pandemics, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Although the health threat level was raised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the first death confirmed in the United States, scientists believe that the danger and fatality of the virus may not be on the level of the usual seasonal flu that occurs every winter in regular intervals.

Scientists recalled that the usual, seasonal flu is also a big health problem which kills dozens of thousands of people in the United States and hundreds of thousands of people in the world, which is why it is important that the current “crisis” is viewed at as a “large force”.

Although flu viruses are known for their unpredictability and this virus strain can mutate at any given moment and become even more dangerous, that possibility is equal to the possibility of the mutation making the virus more benign. According to the preliminary results of epidemiology testing, there is a big possibility that the fatal scenarios in the current epidemic are avoided.

- This virus doesn't have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide – Richard Webby, a leading flu virologist at a children’s research hospital in Memphis said.

Immediately after the swine flu virus was identified for the fist time, scientists noticed a striking similarity with the virus from 1918. Both viruses erupted in the spring after the end of the seasonal flu and attacked young and healthy people instead of children or the elderly. The swine and the Spanish flues are also of the H1N1 strain – which is the name of the two main proteins that are responsible for the virus’s ability of transmission.

The American Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Health Institute issued data about the genetic sorting of the flu they received from samples from patients in California and Texas. They compared the results with known “killers” such as the 1918 strain and gave out positive news.

According to the results, the swine flu lacks certain “killer” characteristics, such as a molecular signature and especially amino-acids that increase the number of virus cells in the lungs and makes the disease more deadly.

As new cases of infections and hospitalisation are being expected, but also cases of death, and
Symptoms of the swine flu are similar to the usual, seasonal flu: sudden fever, cough, muscle pain and chronic tiredness. The only difference is that with the swine flu there is increased vomiting and diarrhea than in the ‘normal’ flu.
although the virus was identified in several places (Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Spain and Great Britain), virologists stress that this does not mean that the virus is spreading at incredible speed.

- You don't ever find anything that you don't look for. Now that diagnostic laboratories and physicians and other healthcare workers know to look for it, perhaps it's not surprising that you're going to see additional cases identified – Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist at the Veterinary University of Wisconsin told the Los Angeles Times.

- And a pandemic doesn't necessarily have a high fatality rate. Even in Mexico, the fatalities may simply reflect that hundreds of thousands of people have been infected. Since the symptoms of swine flu are identical to those of a normal flu, there's no way to know how many cases have evaded government health officials – Webby added.

Because the virus adapts to the human body, it will probably find a way to spread more efficiently, but it is also possible that it can become less dangerous, Olsen said.