Innocuous? Or Deadly?
Both, it would appear. Largely innocuous, but vested in its capacity to strike at the human body's own immunological response system, tinged with deadly potential."It is a very different virus. It does attach to the deep lung tissue in people. When it does, it creates a very bad viral pneumonia, one of the worst we've ever seen... This is the sickest bunch of people I've seen, as a group", according to one medical expert, speaking of the virus's biological attributes.
Describing the distinctive trait of the H1N1 virus to lodge itself deeply within the lungs by binding itself to lung tissues to create a dangerous viral pneumonia. According to the interpretation by some medical scientists. And others yet claim that the virus onset can trigger an extreme immune reaction in some rare instances, where an individual's normal immune response to a foreign invader is to attack the invader, but instead attacks itself.
Creating what is termed scientifically-biologically, a "cytokine storm". "In essence, they die because their own body, in its attempt to fight off the influenza virus, actually kills them", not the virus, according to the president of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease, in Kingston, Ontario.
The very unpredictability of the viral infection has experts confused. There is as yet no way in which individuals can be identified who will experience an over-response through their body's immune system going berserk, and causing them to die of a cytokine storm. As opposed to the vast majority of people who will experience relatively mild symptoms after viral onset.
Unlike seasonal flu that afflicts the elderly and the young and the immune-compromised, this H1N1 virus appears to focus on a younger demographic, with an age median of 32. Further confusing things is that on the rare occasion, healthy young people suffering no chronic illness become fatally afflicted. Including children with no known immune-compromising conditions.
It has been pointed out that this flu is comprised of the genetics of swine, bird and human influenza, and as such behaves in an entirely unpredictable way, confounding the experts and overturning normal expectations. A British study revealed findings that indicate the new viral strain can bind to cell 'receptors' in the upper respiratory tract; nose, throat and upper airway. Whereas seasonal viruses strike the upper-tract receptors.
In immune-compromised individuals the onset of the virus exacerbates existing medical conditions causing secondary bacterial pneumonias, and this group is seen to represent over 80% of deaths from H1N1. But there is no scientific-medical general agreement; these are educated theories. It is the randomness, the unexpectedness of the assault in seemingly healthy people that strikes fear into the general public.
For perspective, worldwide deaths annually caused by the ordinary flu virus are said to be between 250,000 to 500,000. Certainly a considerable figure, which includes deaths where the seasonal flu virus has played a part, with an underlying, chronic illness. Whereas the worldwide figure for H1N1 flu deaths currently stands at 5,000.
This is what the public focuses on, not the fact that the vast preponderance of the afflicted rapidly recover from the H1N1 flu with no ill effects whatever.
Labels: Biology, Health, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 29, 2009
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