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Swine Flu Causes More Lung Damage Than Ordinary Flu Strains: Study
Virologists led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin at Madison tested H1N1, taken from patients in the United States, as well as several seasonal flu viruses on mice, ferrets, macaque monkeys and specially-bred miniature pigs.
They found that H1N1 caused more severe lung lesions among mice, ferrets and macaques than the seasonal flu viruses.
But it did not cause any symptoms among the mini-pigs, which could explain why there has been no evidence that pigs in Mexico fell sick with the disease before the outbreak began among humans.
The team also found that, in experiments in lab dishes, the virus was highly sensitive to two approved and two experimental antiviral drugs, including Tamiflu, now being hurriedly stockpiled around the world.
This confirms the drugs' role as a "first line of defence" in the flu pandemic declared by the UN's World Health Organisation (WHO), they said.
The letter, published online by the British science journal Nature, said the swine flu virus appears to be related to a strain that unleashed the 1918 pandemic that killed tens of millions of people.
The evidence for this comes from blood samples from people born before 1920. Their blood had specific antibodies -- the immune system's frontline defence -- that recognised the new virus and responded to it.
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PATTY(Guest)
08/28/2009
MY 17 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER HAS BECHET'S DISEASE. (OVER-ACTIVE IMMUNE SYSTEM WHICH ATTACKS THE BLOOD VESSELS.) SHOULD THE SWINE FLU VACCINE BE RECOMMENDED ? SOME SAY, ONLY IF THE PATIENT HAS ASTHMA OR IS ON MEDICATIONS FOR THE BECHETS. OTHERS NOT SURE...WHAT IS YOUR OPINION?
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