And fourth, whether there any scavenging species which carry dead parts of the animal away, in doing so spreading the disease further afield. These details would give scientists a better chance of stopping the disease. Despite all this work on wild boar, "the most important mechanism of spread are humans", Heurich says. ASF "is very infectious — most of the animals die, and they die quickly.
Humans, however, spread it and make the spread fast. Trying to keep track of these diseases as they adapt and spread is complicated at the best of times, but there are other challenges too. Despite the havoc swine flu has wreaked on human health in the past, it is not a "notifiable" disease. In other words, farmers are not required to submit swab samples of their pigs for testing. All of the 18, pig samples Harder and Beer took for their Europe surveillance work were collected voluntarily.
This is different to, say, bird flu — a notifiable disease where farmers are legally required to report any suspected disease to the government. One added difficulty is that pigs provide a livelihood to millions of people.
Farmers have to balance controlling any respiratory disease with something like vaccination and the costs of such measures, says Lewis. Plus, the idea that pigs harbour disease can be bad for business — which is why Lewis and other public health experts allege that, in , some farmers actually stopped looking for the disease in their herds and have remained resistant to the idea since.
Beer believes it's time for Europe to introduce a mandatory surveillance programme. The sampling and surveillance work Beer and his colleagues have completed so far have allowed them to create an important collection of novel swine flu viruses, detailing their biological properties and genetics. They then use EpiFlu , an international influenza database with more than a million sequences, to compare their viruses. With this information, Beer and his team can more rapidly understand viruses and start selecting those which show pre-pandemic potential to create prototype vaccines — antidotes ready to be produced at scale should a disease jump from pigs to humans.
It may not be enough to prevent the next pandemic, Beer says. But it could certainly help us create and disseminate a vaccine much more rapidly than is currently possible. We can be "better prepared, we can improve our reaction time… and we can influence the impact of a pandemic", Beer says. Still, this work takes time and funding to complete — two resources that can be far from abundant. Changing the way we raise pigs and interact with livestock could be another important intervention.
In October , the advisory board of Eat, a nonprofit pushing for food system transformation, released an open letter to the G20 , arguing that the expansion of factory farming and unsustainable agriculture is increasing the risk of virus spill-overs from animals to people.
There has been a broader push to move away from factory farming to having smaller groups of pigs raised in greener environments, as well as a shift toward more healthy, sustainable agriculture, too. Internationally, organisations like Farm Forward are providing funding to communities in developing nations where industrial animal farming is on the rise to maintain their independence and protect their rural farms, which are deemed to be more pandemic and environment-friendly.
These changes can take time. Meanwhile, I ask Lewis what keeps her up at night. The more we know about a disease, the better placed are to avoid its spread. But ours is a complex, connected system. We don't live in silos — we can't detach Europe's diseases from Asia, or Mexico's from the United States, and keeping on top of every virus is nearly impossible.
For all the work going on in the scientific community to stop spillover, far bigger changes — from social, to regulatory, to environmental — could be needed to avoid the next pandemic.
Reporting for this story, part of our series Stopping the Next One , was supported with funding from the Pulitzer Center. Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter or Instagram. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.
Stopping the Next One Virus. The reasons swine flu could return. Share using Email. By Harriet Constable 2nd February The last global flu pandemic was declared over in , but the virus responsible is still with us today — and scientists fear human activity is increasing the risk of new influenza A outbreaks.
This article explains the H1N1 virus and the symptoms you may experience with it. It discusses how this type of flu is diagnosed and treated, as well as the importance of getting your annual flu shot.
H1N1 was first detected in April in a year-old girl in California. The influenza pandemic was also caused by an H1N1 virus. Known as the Spanish flu , its genes show that it may have developed from a swine flu virus or from an avian bird flu virus.
The pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide and was notable in that it had a high death rate among healthy adults. H1N1 causes respiratory illness and is very contagious. Type A influenza viruses have the ability to mix with other strains, creating a new strain, which is what happened to cause the pandemic of to Pigs are able to contract all three types of influenza human, swine, and avian , make them perfect vessels in which the virus can mix and change. The H1N1 virus is made of swine, human, and avian genes that metamorphosed in pigs, probably several years before the pandemic hence the name "swine flu.
Influenza circulates among pigs throughout the year but is most common during the late fall and winter, similar to the human flu season. Sometimes pigs can pass the flu to the humans who work. When people get the H1N1 virus, it's in the same way they can get any type of flu— by contact with another person who is sick, from either droplets in the air that contain the live virus or by touching a surface that has been contaminated and then touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.
You can't get influenza from eating pork, though you should always make sure that it's cooked thoroughly and handled carefully. If you develop signs of the flu and are otherwise in good health, you likely don't need to see a healthcare provider. However, if you're pregnant, your immune system is compromised, or you have a chronic illness such as asthma, diabetes, emphysema, or a heart condition, you should see your practitioner right away.
There are rapid influenza diagnostic tests that can tell if you have the flu or not, as well as which type A or B , though they are not as accurate as other tests. Get our printable guide for your next healthcare provider's appointment to help you ask the right questions. There are also rapid molecular assays, which are more accurate and can also give a rapid result.
Since there is more than one strain of influenza A virus strain, a positive influenza A test doesn't necessarily mean you have the H1N1 virus. To definitively diagnose and classify the strain of influenza you have, such as H1N1, your healthcare provider may send your specimen to a specialized hospital or state lab for analysis.
H1N1 flu is a virus just like any other strain of flu. The antiviral medications Tamiflu and Relenza do not cure the illness, but they may shorten the duration, make symptoms less severe, or help you avoid it altogether if you are exposed. They are usually reserved for people who are at a higher risk of complications , so the likelihood of the virus developing a resistance to them is lessened.
Otherwise, treatment for most people mainly consists of comfort measures and treating symptoms as they occur. And she said even if a patient is tested, sometimes the virus might not even be detectable. The study, published today in the medical journal The Lancet, is the first attempt to provide a global estimate of how many deaths actually occurred during the first year of the swine flu pandemic. Researchers were more surprised by who the virus targeted.
According to the CDC analysis, 80 percent of deaths from the swine flu pandemic were of people under age 65, not the older, frail adults who are typically the victims of seasonal flu. Geographically, 59 percent of the deaths were in Africa and Southeast Asia. So far, we feel that the ongoing nationwide lockdown has helped us. Also, we are trying to maintain a strict physical distance between pigs, thus trying to avoid more deaths. The flu was first detected in Kenya in , which spread across Europe and the Americas in the ss.
In August , China reported the first case of African swine flu. The recovery rate in the country stands at As the government allowed liquor shops to reopen, long queues were witnessed outside wine shops.
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