Several new scientific studies of H1N1 have been released in the last few days. We’re highlighting four that might interest you because they appear to answer some common questions about swine flu. (Disclaimer: we’re not in a position to evaluate the quality of the research.)
Question: Is it OK to eat pork from a pig infected with H1N1?
The Department of Agriculture has consistently maintained that you can’t catch H1N1 by eating pork. Now they’ve followed that up with a study showing that pigs infected with H1N1 are safe to eat. (A PDF of the press release is here.) The virus appears not to be present in tissues other than those from the respiratory tract. The researchers found “no evidence for systemic infection that would contaminate meat with infectious virus.”
Question: How is H1N1 sometimes fatal?
Brazilian researchers, examining 21 fatal cases of H1N1, have concluded that the cause of death was typically due to lung damage (of various kinds). In other words, despite the variety of systemic symptoms caused by H1N1, “the main pathological changes associated with [H1N1] infection are localized to the lungs.” Apparently one quarter of the patients did not have any underlying complicating medical condition. (The full study will be published next month in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.)
Question: Is H1N1 more dangerous for children than seasonal flu?
A retrospective study of children who died of H1N1 this spring/summer in Buenos Aires says: yes. It concludes that the “rate of death [from H1N1] was 10 times the rate associated with seasonal influenza for the same population in 2007 and 5 times the rate reported by the CDC for the U.S. pediatric population during the relatively severe 2003–2004 influenza season.” The mortality rate for infants was especially high (“10 times the U.S. infant death rate from seasonal influenza in 2003–2004″).
Question: Do pregnant women really have an increased risk of dying from H1N1?
A retrospective California study of “reproductive-age women” (pregnant or not) who were “hospitalized with or died from 2009 H1N1 influenza” suggests this is true. It also concludes that, for pregnant women, antiviral treatment within 2 days of symptom onset reduced risk of admission to an ICU and/or death. About one third of the pregnant patients in the study had other “risk factors for complications from influenza.”
