As the H1N1 vaccine shortage escalates, the CDC continues a fast and furious schedule of media briefings. The next one is scheduled for tomorrow at 1:00 pm ET. (Sign up here for CDC media alerts.)
These briefings continue to be informative and often range beyond the lead topic of the day. Tuesday’s session, which began with some statistics and the vaccine issue, also contained this interesting note: a best guess at reasons for H1N1 complications in certain people with no underlying conditions.
Betsy McKay [from the Wall Street Journal]: [W]hat makes some healthy people get so severely ill while others get mildly ill? [...]
Anne Schuchat: [S]ome healthy people with this H1N1 virus are having overwhelmingly serious complications. I think there are two factors there. One is that this virus, although it doesn’t do this usually, it can cause a viral pneumonia, an infection in the lower respiratory tract, not just the upper respiratory tract that can be pretty severe with a pretty overwhelming infection that is hard to treat each with antiviral medicines. That’s the exception. Not the rule. We don’t know the factors that leave one person to get that while another person will get a milder infection. A second explanation for healthy people coming down with really overwhelmingly severe disease is bacterial pneumonias. Bacteria can sweep in after influenza has weakened our responses and can cause a very strong infection. We’ve been seeing these bacterial pneumonias caused by staph, some people hear of MRSA, that’s around in our communities and it’s sweeping in sometimes after the influenza, we’ve seeing some infections from pneumococcus. People can get vaccinated against it. There’s a vaccine recommended for people who have chronic diseases like asthma, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease.
Schuchat goes on to say that future studies will probably give a more complete picture of the causes of complications.
You can watch the CDC briefings here live. Transcripts and audio show up here promptly after the event.