Global science effort against flu
Updated
Public health officials around the world are strengthening responses to the new strain of swine flu that's emerged in the Americas. Australia, for example, has imposed tougher requirements on aircraft arriving from the affected countries, after advice from the country's Chief Medical Officer. The death toll in Mexico has risen to one hundred and three with 400 more infections reported. Cases have appeared in several other countries, but as yet none have been confirmed in Asia. Meanwhile, a global scientific response continues in a bid to fill in the gaps about the nature of the flu as the world wonders whether this is the pandemic that scientists have been fearing.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Professor Dominic Dwyer, Professor of Virology, Westmead Hospital, Sydney; Professor Graham Brown, director, The Nossel Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne
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MOTTRAM: The fear of a new pandemic, the one that wipes out millions and ruins entire societies, has long hung heavily over the international community. The fear has fuelled a global policy response that was triggered when scientists in the southern USA identified the new strain of swine flu in their midst, as part of normal work on influenza strains, and traced it back to the deadly outbreak in Mexico. Dominic Dwyer is Professor of Virology at Sydney's Westmead hospital.
DWYER: There are international health regulations now that most countries in the world have signed up to and organised through the World Health Organisation that require countries to notify outbreaks of unusual disease. So this has certainly happened in the case of the swine flu outbreaks in Mexico and the United States initially.
MOTTRAM: The notification led many countries, like Australia, to activate initial surveillance of passengers arriving from the affected areas. But the surveillance is only possible once officials are armed with the science. The US laboratory that identified this new swine flu strain is part of a global network of over a hundred laboratories specifically watching out for new forms of influenza. In existence for nearly half a century, Professor Dwyer says its probably the strongest and oldest laboratory network anywhere.
DWYER: It has four or five laboratories around the world that are really the high level influenza laboratories. There happens to be one in Australia, in Melbourne. There's also other ones in the USA, Japan and Europe and so on. Then underneath that you have over a hundred laboratories around the world that contribute to those major laboratories any viruses that they might find.
MOTTRAM: So mapping the genetic makeup of a variant is a key task of these specialist laboratories. Professor Graham Brown is director of the Nossel Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne.
BROWN: Because when you know the nature of the variant you should be able to predict whether for example a vaccine may protect against it or whether drugs might work.
MOTTRAM: The heavy focus on influenza stems from the fact that such viruses usually start in birds and can pass to humans -- as in Asia's ongoing battle with bird flu -- while both bird and human influenza viruses can also affect pigs. Professor Brown again.
BROWN: In this case because we have the genetic sequence of the virus, we know that there are elements of this virus that's got components that look a bit like flu in humans, a bit like flu in birds and a bit like flu in pigs.
MOTTRAM: In the case of Mexico, Professor Brown says, the worry is that the virus has taken the next critical step.
BROWN: The fact that it has spread from person to person, who don't appear to have contact either with birds or with pigs suggests that it can spread from person to person and start a pandemic.
MOTTRAM: Professor Dominic Dwyer though doesn't believe that this swine flu outbreak is the "big one" that's long been anticipated.
DWYER: This is not a pandemic in the sense that this is a completely new flu strain we've never seen before. However it is a variant of influenza that has come from animals and is causing human disease so for that reason we're obviously worried.
MOTTRAM: The challenge for officials, Professor Dwyer says is in getting the balance right .. to respond quickly but to avoid causing panic.
DWYER: I think the whole SARS story back in 2002-3 got everybody very anxious because it took a while for people to realise that there was this disease happening and because of that it allowed further spread of SARS around the world. The plan is now that if people are more reactive to the first identification of a problem, then you're going to be better able to control it if it does continue. So I guess you do run the risk of overcalling the significance of things, but that's probably better than undercalling.
