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This week on Our World: The swine flu outbreak - how to avoid infection and the prospects for a vaccine ... safe nursing for HIV-positive mothers ... and farming by remote control ...
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I'm Art Chimes. Welcome to VOA's science and technology magazine, "Our World."
The World Health Organization this week raised the alert on swine influenza A-H1N1.
The Phase Five alert means that the virus is spreading from person to person. In WHO's terminology, it is a "strong signal that a pandemic is imminent."
Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the number of people confirmed with swine flu is still only in the hundreds, many with relatively minor symptoms.
To put this in perspective, the WHO says that each year, seasonal flu viruses will kill between a quarter million and a half million people.
Still, the concern about swine flu is the uncertainty of a new virus that is turning up everywhere from the South Pacific to North America to Europe.
Because it is already widespread, WHO Assistant Director-General Dr. Keiji Fukuda said that there is little point in imposing travel bans -
FUKUDA: "Predominantly because this virus has already spread quite far and at this time, containment is not a feasible operation."
U.S. officials say there is no reason to avoid travel by plane or mass transportation, though some experts have suggested avoiding non-essential travel to affected areas. Several hundred American schools were closed at the end of the week to try to limit the spread of infection.
I spoke this week with Joan Nichols, an influenza researcher at the University of Texas and the Galveston National Laboratory. She explained that much of the uncertainty about this virus derives from its genetic makeup, which includes a combination of genes.
NICHOLS: "They're from human, avian, and swine viruses, which makes it very special."
Q: Does that make it more dangerous?
NICHOLS: "It can because it's new, and because it's new and we haven't seen it before, our population has no immunity to it. So that's why it's something we want to watch in terms of potential for pandemic."
Q How does a new strain of influenza virus happen?
NICHOLS: "New strains emerge periodically and circulate in our population. That's what's special about influenza. What's also special in terms of it being a swine virus is that influenza viruses can be transmitted from pigs to people and require direct contact usually. And pigs can serve as a mixing pot, produce new viruses like this one that have pieces of different viruses and mixtures of genes from different viruses. That's what makes it new."
Q: So does the fact that it is coming from this reservoir that includes some elements of pig, does that make pork dangerous to eat. Can you get the swine flu from eating pork?
NICHOLS: "No, you can't get swine flu from eating pork, and generally cooking pork kills virus and bacteria that are found in it. In this case, this virus is being transmitted from people to people, so there's no longer that pig-to-human component to it. And that's what we're interested in. In terms of the WHO criteria, a virus to be a pandemic virus, it has to be new, it has to transmit well from people to people, and the global population has to have no immunity to it."
Q Is there a particular danger if you live or work around pigs?
NICHOLS: "Generally, we see a few outbreaks every year of swine flu that are transmitted across to people that do require direct contact with pigs. Between 2005 and 2009, I think maybe there were like a dozen cases. So it does happen occasionally. The greater concern is that it is transmitted from people to people at this stage."
Q: Is there any particular reason why this strain might have emerged in Mexico, or does it just have to be somewhere?