Swine fever could explode into a global pandemic—experts

How will Influenza H1N1, or swine flu as it was initially called, interact with HIV?

That is the question medical experts are starting to grapple with following the World Health Organisation’s declaration that the new pathogen cannot be contained, meaning that it could snowball into a global pandemic.

Although the mortality rate of the virus seem to be much lower than earlier thought, medical experts and the WHO are unsure how the pathogen could affect populations like those in East Africa where HIV, which lowers a person’s immunity, is already endemic.

The reason for the uncertainity centres on the fact that most flu viruses often kill people whose immune systems are the strongest, as opposed to those whose body defences are weak.

Most of the victims of the latest swine flu outbreak, for example, like those of the 1968 and 1918 epidemics are aged between 20 and 45 years, the optimal years.

The dynamics between the strength of one’s immunity and H1N1 could however change in a person infected with HIV, experts say, with the lower immunity leading to a more serious infection, and possibly higher mortality.

Such a development would be catastrophic for East Africa, which has about 5 million people living with the Aids virus.

A complicating factor would also be the region’s generally poor nutritional status, in which nearly half of the population is under-nourished.

Most countries in the region do not have adequate stocks of Tamiflu, the antiviral that has been found to have some level of success in the treatment of the new virus.

Last week, South Africa escaped becoming the first HIV-endemic country to report a confirmed case of swine flu, when two suspected cases turned negative.

Like East Africa, the country is said not to have enough adequate Tamiflu stocks.

“I know for a fact that we haven’t stockpiled,” said Ed Rybicki, a virologist at te University of Cape Town said last week.

By the end of last week H1N1, a combination of pig, bird and human viruses, had killed about 160 people in Mexico and a 23-month baby in the United States.

Cases of the viral infection have also been reported in Europe, Israel and Australia.

WHO has declared the outbreak a global health emergency and asked all governments to take the necessary measures to stop its spread.