Imrose Kauser Section: MWF at 11am Scientific American Current Issues in Microbiology Article: Preparing for a Pandemic Due

date: Midnight on Friday, September 16th 1. Why are novel influenza viruses likely to arise in Asia? Influenza strain is likely to rise in Asia because currently there is a fierce strain of avain flu killing people in Asia and infecting birds. This strain is evolving and the infected birds are reaching their migration period, which will possibly spread the infection across the world. But most importantly, Aquatic birds such as ducks and geese are the natural hosts for influenza and villagers in Asia live in close contact to them, which makes it more likely for the virus to be passed on to humans. 2. Total worldwide production of flu vaccine is about 300 million doses annually, yet a pandemic could require 600 million doses for the United States alone. Why arent more doses made and stockpiled now? First, the vaccine is evolving and it will be hard to find a vaccine that would match an always-evolving virus. Also, the process it self to make a vaccine requires six months to transform viral isolates into initial vials of vaccine. There can be a contamination at facilities that can stop a portion of vaccine production. Additionally, since pandemics and flu seasons happen at the same time, companies are restricted to make not substantial amount of both by their facilities and work input. Stockpiling of vaccines is not efficient since the virus is evolving and there has to be research involved to find a best matched vaccine for it. Furthermore, vaccines expire after few years, thus it makes it pointless to stockpile. As well as there are not enough incentives for vaccine makers to make more vaccine annually. 3. Since the availability of flu vaccine is limited, who should receive any future pandemic flu vaccine? According to the U.S. national vaccine advisory, future pandemic flu vaccine distribution should start with the population of key government leaders, medical caregivers, workers in fly vaccine and drug factories, pregnant women, and those infants, elderly and ill people who are already in the highpriority group for annual flu shots. 4. Physicians administered antibiotics to a family infected with influenza virus H5N1 in June 2005. All three members of the family died within three weeks. Why were antibiotics ineffective against the virus? A vaccine is required to fight off the virus and the antibiotic was ineffective. Also, the doctors did not know that it was a H5N1 virus they were effected

by; they found that out after their death. 5. How does a pandemic differ from an epidemic? Pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that spreads over countries and continents. An epidemic is a spur of large amount of infectious disease cases in short period of time. 6. Seasonal flu deaths typically come from bacterial pneumonia following exhaustion of the bodys defenses by the influenza virus. How does this compare with the expected disease caused by an H5N1 pandemic strain of influenza? The virus is not consistent, it had been traced to cause damage to the lower lungs, blood, brain and the gut system. It is also resistant to an older class of antivirals called amantadines. 7. MedImmune makes inhalable, live, flu vaccines. Some scientists caution that a live vaccine against a pandemic strain of flu might be too dangerous to distribute. Why do these scientists caution against distribution? It would be too risky to distribute live vaccine derived from a pandemic strain, because there is a small chance that the virus in the vaccine could exchange genes with a normal flu virus in a person and generate an even more dangerous strain of influenza, says a scientist. Thus creating a worse pandemic. 8. In contrast to seasonal flu, which affects the oldest and youngest among us, an H5N1 flu pandemic may be more like the 1918 pandemic in which healthy young adults were most susceptible. Explain why the 1918 strain was most deadly to otherwise healthy individuals. Since the immune system of the young adults is the strongest, the 1918 strain was very effective to attack that population. Researches found that the strain suppresses early immune response and the virus provokes extreme immune activity that overwhelms it. Young adults have the fastest immune response system, so the strain was able to work effectively at the beginning by releasing chemicals to trick the immune system to resist attack. 9. Describe briefly four new approaches to inhibiting influenza virus. Four new approaches to inhibit influenza are creating new drugs that inhibit viruses entry or ability to function. One approach is to inhibit the neuraminidase protein, which the virus uses to detach from one cell and infect another. Second is the inhibition of viral attachment to cells. Third, create stimulation of RNA interference mechanism, and lastly antisense DNA to block viral genes.

10. This Scientific American article was written in October 2005. What influenza strain caused the most recent pandemic in 2009? Which past pandemic was this strain of influenza related to? In 2009, H1N1 influenza strain resulted in a pandemic. The Spanish flu or the 1918 flu pandemic was the H1N1 strain related to.