Protection From H1N1 Flu Is The Same As From Seasonal Flu

Protection From H1N1 Flu Is The Same As From Seasonal Flu.
The untested H1N1 flu seems to serving many characteristics with the seasonal flu it has mostly replaced, a uncharted study indicates. "Our results are further confirmation that 2009 pandemic H1N1 and seasonal flu have like sending dynamics price. People seem to be similarly transmissible when ill with either pandemic or seasonal flu, and the viruses are likely to growth in similar ways," said Benjamin Cowling, lead father of a study appearing in the June 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The most luxurious news is that this means the preventive measures healthfulness authorities have been recommending, such as frequent hand washing, should be equally serviceable against pandemic flu. "Influenza is very difficult to contain, but ongoing measures including the availability of pandemic H1N1 vaccines should be able to ease up the worst of any further epidemics," added Cowling, who is an assistant professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong.

Cowling and his colleagues followed 284 household members of 99 individuals who had tested firm for H1N1. Eight percent of the household contacts also floor indisposed with the H1N1 virus, about the same transferring rate as seen for the seasonal flu (9 percent), the researchers found.

Viral shedding (when the virus replicates and leaves the body), as well as the mould of genuine sickness, were also nearly the same for the two types of flu. The "attack rate" (meaning the portion of people in the entire population who get sick) for H1N1 was higher than that for seasonal flu and the idiosyncrasy was most pronounced amid children. The authors hypothesized that this might be due to the fact that younger kin seem to have lower natural immunity to the virus.

The patients in this survey who were given oseltamivir (Tamiflu) did seem to have reduced antibody levels. "This would suggest that perhaps oseltamivir may result in a less vigorous immune response than kinsfolk who are not treated with this drug ," said Dr John J Treanor, professor of prescription and of microbiology and immunology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

So "That is very unheard-of from studies looking at seasonal flu, where there doesn't appear to be any impact of oseltamivir on antibody response. This should be looked at more closely. It's potentially influential in terms of long-term susceptibility to re-infection. Susceptibility might be unalike in someone treated with oseltamivir who is not vaccinated. They might have enhanced susceptibility".

A sec swat in the journal found that giving Tamiflu prophylactically (as a prevention measure) to race confined in close quarters - in this case, martial installations - seemed to stem outbreaks. Flu is also more suitable to spread and spread faster in enclosed places such as schools and hospitals, in totalling to military facilities.

In this study, Tamiflu was given to 1100 personnel out of a complete of 1175 personnel. Before the intervention, 6,4 percent of individuals were infected, compared with only 0,6 percent after Tamiflu was introduced. On average, a soul who came down with H1N1 sprawl the virus to only 0,11 additional individuals after the intervention, versus almost two proletariat before review. Although a vaccine is obtainable for the 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain, Tamiflu might be an selection in areas where the vaccine is not certainly obtainable, stated the authors, who are with the Singapore Ministry of Defence and the National University of Singapore.