“What can we expect from H1N1 this fall?”

Thanks to trancy.net

From his office at the Mayo Clinic, flu pandemic expert, Dr. Greg Poland is keeping a close eye on the southern hemisphere and how H1N1 virus is spreading. While we’re in the midst of a sunny summer, it’s winter flu season there. Poland says, “We’re talking tens of thousands of cases and close to 1,000 deaths by now.”

He says, “One thing of concern early on in Argentina in part is they were seeing case fatality rates that were somewhere in the 2 to 2 1/2% range. Now in the U.S. our case fatality rate has been under, well under, 1%. About .4 to .5%. But 2 to 3% is the same case fatality rate that historians think happened in 1918.

The 1918 flu pandemic killed more than 600,000 in the U.S. So the question is, could H1N1 become as deadly?

There are concerns.

One is that in the southern hemisphere, H1N1 has completely replaced seasonal flu.

Poland says, “What’s happening down there is mimicking what was seen in 1918 and again in 1968. This pandemic virus is fitter and is outpacing, outcompeting, replacing all the seasonal virus.”

Plus there are a few H1N1 cases that have been resistant to the anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

Of course vaccine is being made for H1N1 but manufacturers say they may only get 30% to 50% of the doses they originally hoped for, putting even more pressure on a tiered rationing system that would give health care workers and children the vaccine first.