Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

A New Strain Of ‘Swine Flu’ Or A Change In Surveillance?

By Judy Wilyman | Principia Scientific | June 8, 2021

The Australian Government recently prioritized a vaccine for community use against a new strain of influenza. This preventative action is notable as there has been little evidence in the community that suggests this influenza strain is more virulent than other new strains which occur regularly.

In fact, the World Health Organization (2009) states the majority of people who contract this disease experience the milder form of influenza and recover without requiring treatment (1).

An examination of evidence provided by the Western Australian Health Department regarding deaths to swine influenza Type A H1N1 prompts us to ask if it is possible that a change in the surveillance of influenza in 2009 has resulted in the creation of hysteria over a new strain of influenza?

Influenza is a disease that is caused by many strains of virus. These viruses spread easily and new strains develop regularly (2). A vaccine against influenza will only protect against one to three strains depending on the type of vaccine used (3). For example, the current seasonal influenza vaccine protects against Type A (H1N1), Type A (H3N2) and Type B (3). Influenza Type A H1N1 is a strain that has been covered in influenza vaccines for many years.

The new strain of ‘swine’ flu is stated to be a recombination of genetic material from human Type A H1N1, a strain of bird flu and 2 strains of pig flu (1). The WHO states ‘there are no known instances of humans getting this strain of influenza from pigs and other animals’. It is also stated that this strain is not known to be endemic in pigs (1). Yet this flu has been promoted to the public as ‘swine flu’ even though it is a strain that has never been found in pigs.

The public has been misinformed about this strain of influenza. The term ‘swine flu’ creates anxiety and fear of a disease that has come from pigs when the official medical term for this new strain is ‘Influenza Type A, H1N1, human strain’ (1).

The World Health Organisation states that influenza A (H1N1) is a new virus and one to which most people have no or little immunity (1). In a study conducted by the CDC it was shown that individuals between the ages of 18-64 had antibodies present that reacted to the swine flu virus (4). Whilst this doesn’t indicate clinical protection it does suggest that some individuals may have immunity from previous exposure to H1N1 (4). There is no reason to assume that the population will have no immunity to this new strain as it may be immunologically similar to previous H1N1 viruses (5).

H1N1 is a strain of influenza that has been covered for many years in the seasonal influenza vaccine. Therefore you would expect that the Australian Health Department would have mortality data for seasonal H1N1 from previous years. This is not the case. The Health Department has stated ‘this data has not been collected in previous years or for this year’ – even though Type A H1N1 has been one of the most virulent and prevalent strains and regularly covered in the influenza vaccine(3).

In 2009 the Australian Health Department changed the surveillance of influenza in the community (6). The Department of Health suggests the reason there is good data on the mortality associated with influenza H1N1 2009 is because of enhanced surveillance systems that were put in place specifically to monitor the pandemic (6). Prior to 2009 influenza that was notified by GP’s and laboratories was not systematically followed up or linked to hospitalization/death data to determine outcomes (6) In addition, post-mortem victims were not routinely tested for sub-types of influenza (6).

In previous years deaths were listed as ‘influenza’ and were not routinely sub-typed for the strain (6). The Australian Health Department also states ‘hospitals were less likely to routinely test admitted patients with respiratory viruses, including pneumonia, for influenza, so (in previous years) many cases remained undiagnosed or were assumed to be primary bacterial infections (6).

This year most cases of influenza notified by labs or GP’s were followed up to see if the cases were hospitalized or resulted in death.

The Australian Health Department was also systematically testing hospitalizations /deaths for H1N1. As a result, the health department is claiming that 90-95% of laboratory proven influenza cases are due to ‘swine’ H1N1 (6).

It is known that incidence figures for a disease can be inflated by monitoring a disease in a more systematic manner. A more sensitive or systematic test will identify cases that would previously have gone unidentified. However, a greater incidence of a disease does not always indicate greater severity to the population (7). This is the case with a disease such as influenza which has a high incidence in the community but epidemics are known to be mild for the majority of people (8).

How can the public be sure that the number of deaths attributed to this new strain of ‘swine’ H1N1 is different to the number of deaths associated with seasonal H1N1 in previous years if this testing was not being done? These changes in surveillance mean that even though influenza Type A H1N1 has been prevalent in previous years there is no data on the number of deaths associated with this strain in previous years because it hasn’t been monitored.

The Health Department also admits that it is unclear to what extent ‘Swine’ H1N1 infection may have contributed to the deaths it is linked with this year because there are usually several infections present and in most cases underlying medical conditions (6). It is well known that disease diagnosis and cause of death is an inexact science and it is up to the medical practitioner to state the primary cause of death (9).

The Health Department has not produced statistics that show the overall death rate for influenza to be significantly worse this year than in previous years (3).

The Therapeutic Goods Association states “the experience in Australia of the disease is mild in most cases’ (10). The evidence presented above illustrates how different surveillance methods can enhance the incidence of disease in the community. This leaves the cause of the increase in incidence open to interpretation. For this reason the government should be required to publicize any changes to surveillance practices whenever there is an increase in incidence reporting of a disease.

This will ensure that the information the public receives can be interpreted in an open and transparent fashion that will lead to less fear and panic.

In addition, the government admits that the public has been misinformed by calling this strain ‘swine flu’ but they have stated “they are unable to control how the media reports on the Influenza A (H1N1) virus to the community” (10). Why did the government not correct this information in the media by stating it is not a swine flu and informing the public of its medical name?

This is of significant concern when it is observed that fear is used to encourage the public to accept a medical intervention (vaccination) in healthy individuals.

It is extremely important that we have an accurate knowledge of the harm being caused by the use of multiple vaccines in individuals and until this science is complete we need to assess carefully how many vaccines are necessary. A change in surveillance has a significant impact on the incidence of disease in the community and the Public, as the main stakeholder in the use of vaccines, cannot make a proper assessment of the need for a vaccine without this information.

References:

1) The World Health Organization (WHO) http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/about_disease/en/inde x.html (visited 17.9.09)

2) Jefferson T, Rivetti D, Di Pietrantonj C, Rivetti A, Demicheli V, 2008, Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 2. Art. No: CD001269

3) Government of Western Australia, Department of Health, Communicable Diseases Control Directorate, Influenza fact sheet, 2009

4) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) 58, p. 521 – 524

5) Schuchat A, 2009, as cited in CDC, MMWR 58, p.521-524

6) Government of Western Australia, Department of Health, Communicable Diseases Control Directorate

7) Burnet, M., 1952, “The Pattern of Disease in Childhood”, Australasian Annals of Medicine , Vol.1, No. 2: p. 93.

8) Heikkinen T, Booy R, Campins M, Finn A, Olcen P, Peltola H, Rodrigo C, Schmitt H, Schumacher F, Teo S, Weil-Olivier C, 2006, Should healthy children be vaccinated against influenza?
European Journal of Pediatrics, 165: 223-228, DOI 10.1007/s00431-005-0040-9

9) McIntyre P, 2009, Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS).

10) Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing, 2009, Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) 5

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Coronavirus and the Sun: a Lesson from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Fresh air, sunlight and improvised face masks seemed to work a century ago; and they might help us now.

By Richard Hobday | March 10, 2020

When new, virulent diseases emerge, such SARS and Covid-19, the race begins to find new vaccines and treatments for those affected. As the current crisis unfolds, governments are enforcing quarantine and isolation, and public gatherings are being discouraged. Health officials took the same approach 100 years ago, when influenza was spreading around the world. The results were mixed. But records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza — little-known today — was effective. Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks and months ahead.

Influenza patients getting sunlight at the Camp Brooks emergency open-air hospital in Boston. Medical staff were not supposed to remove their masks. (National Archives)

Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu virus and other harmful germs. Equally, sunlight is germicidal and there is now evidence it can kill the flu virus.

`Open-Air’ Treatment in 1918

During the great pandemic, two of the worst places to be were military barracks and troop-ships. Overcrowding and bad ventilation put soldiers and sailors at high risk of catching influenza and the other infections that often followed it.[2,3] As with the current Covid-19 outbreak, most of the victims of so-called `Spanish flu’ did not die from influenza: they died of pneumonia and other complications.

When the influenza pandemic reached the East coast of the United States in 1918, the city of Boston was particularly badly hit. So the State Guard set up an emergency hospital. They took in the worst cases among sailors on ships in Boston harbour. The hospital’s medical officer had noticed the most seriously ill sailors had been in badly-ventilated spaces. So he gave them as much fresh air as possible by putting them in tents. And in good weather they were taken out of their tents and put in the sun. At this time, it was common practice to put sick soldiers outdoors. Open-air therapy, as it was known, was widely used on casualties from the Western Front. And it became the treatment of choice for another common and often deadly respiratory infection of the time; tuberculosis. Patients were put outside in their beds to breathe fresh outdoor air. Or they were nursed in cross-ventilated wards with the windows open day and night. The open-air regimen remained popular until antibiotics replaced it in the 1950s.

Doctors who had first-hand experience of open-air therapy at the hospital in Boston were convinced the regimen was effective. It was adopted elsewhere. If one report is correct, it reduced deaths among hospital patients from 40 per cent to about 13 per cent.[4] According to the Surgeon General of the Massachusetts State Guard:

`The efficacy of open air treatment has been absolutely proven, and one has only to try it to discover its value.’

Fresh Air is a Disinfectant

Patients treated outdoors were less likely to be exposed to the infectious germs that are often present in conventional hospital wards. They were breathing clean air in what must have been a largely sterile environment. We know this because, in the 1960s, Ministry of Defence scientists proved that fresh air is a natural disinfectant.[5] Something in it, which they called the Open Air Factor, is far more harmful to airborne bacteria — and the influenza virus — than indoor air. They couldn’t identify exactly what the Open Air Factor is. But they found it was effective both at night and during the daytime.

Their research also revealed that the Open Air Factor’s disinfecting powers can be preserved in enclosures — if ventilation rates are kept high enough. Significantly, the rates they identified are the same ones that cross-ventilated hospital wards, with high ceilings and big windows, were designed for.[6] But by the time the scientists made their discoveries, antibiotic therapy had replaced open-air treatment. Since then the germicidal effects of fresh air have not featured in infection control, or hospital design. Yet harmful bacteria have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

Sunlight and Influenza Infection

Putting infected patients out in the sun may have helped because it inactivates the influenza virus.[7] It also kills bacteria that cause lung and other infections in hospitals.[8] During the First World War, military surgeons routinely used sunlight to heal infected wounds.[9] They knew it was a disinfectant. What they didn’t know is that one advantage of placing patients outside in the sun is they can synthesise vitamin D in their skin if sunlight is strong enough. This was not discovered until the 1920s. Low vitamin D levels are now linked to respiratory infections and may increase susceptibility to influenza.[10] Also, our body’s biological rhythms appear to influence how we resist infections.[11] New research suggests they can alter our inflammatory response to the flu virus.[12] As with vitamin D, at the time of the 1918 pandemic, the important part played by sunlight in synchronizing these rhythms was not known.

Face Masks Coronavirus and Flu

Surgical masks are currently in short supply in China and elsewhere. They were worn 100 years ago, during the great pandemic, to try and stop the influenza virus spreading. While surgical masks may offer some protection from infection they do not seal around the face. So they don’t filter out small airborne particles. In 1918, anyone at the emergency hospital in Boston who had contact with patients had to wear an improvised face mask. This comprised five layers of gauze fitted to a wire frame which covered the nose and mouth. The frame was shaped to fit the face of the wearer and prevent the gauze filter touching the mouth and nostrils. The masks were replaced every two hours; properly sterilized and with fresh gauze put on. They were a forerunner of the N95 respirators in use in hospitals today to protect medical staff against airborne infection.

Temporary Hospitals

Staff at the hospital kept up high standards of personal and environmental hygiene. No doubt this played a big part in the relatively low rates of infection and deaths reported there. The speed with which their hospital and other temporary open-air facilities were erected to cope with the surge in pneumonia patients was another factor. Today, many countries are not prepared for a severe influenza pandemic.[13] Their health services will be overwhelmed if there is one. Vaccines and antiviral drugs might help. Antibiotics may be effective for pneumonia and other complications. But much of the world’s population will not have access to them. If another 1918 comes, or the Covid-19 crisis gets worse, history suggests it might be prudent to have tents and pre-fabricated wards ready to deal with large numbers of seriously ill cases. Plenty of fresh air and a little sunlight might help too.

References

  1. Hobday RA and Cason JW. The open-air treatment of pandemic influenza. Am J Public Health 2009;99 Suppl 2:S236–42. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.134627.
  2. Aligne CA. Overcrowding and mortality during the influenza pandemic of 1918. Am J Public Health 2016 Apr;106(4):642–4. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.303018.
  3. Summers JA, Wilson N, Baker MG, Shanks GD. Mortality risk factors for pandemic influenza on New Zealand troop ship, 1918. Emerg Infect Dis 2010 Dec;16(12):1931–7. doi:10.3201/eid1612.100429.
  4. Anon. Weapons against influenza. Am J Public Health 1918 Oct;8(10):787–8. doi: 10.2105/ajph.8.10.787.
  5. May KP, Druett HA. A micro-thread technique for studying the viability of microbes in a simulated airborne state. J Gen Micro-biol 1968;51:353e66. Doi: 10.1099/00221287–51–3–353.
  6. Hobday RA. The open-air factor and infection control. J Hosp Infect 2019;103:e23-e24 doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2019.04.003.
  7. Schuit M, Gardner S, Wood S et al. The influence of simulated sunlight on the inactivation of influenza virus in aerosols. J Infect Dis 2020 Jan 14;221(3):372–378. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiz582.
  8. Hobday RA, Dancer SJ. Roles of sunlight and natural ventilation for controlling infection: historical and current perspectives. J Hosp Infect 2013;84:271–282. doi: 10.1016/j.jhin.2013.04.011.
  9. Hobday RA. Sunlight therapy and solar architecture. Med Hist 1997 Oct;41(4):455–72. doi:10.1017/s0025727300063043.
  10. Gruber-Bzura BM. Vitamin D and influenza-prevention or therapy? Int J Mol Sci 2018 Aug 16;19(8). pii: E2419. doi: 10.3390/ijms19082419.
  11. Costantini C, Renga G, Sellitto F, et al. Microbes in the era of circadian medicine. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2020 Feb 5;10:30. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2020.00030.
  12. Sengupta S, Tang SY, Devine JC et al. Circadian control of lung inflammation in influenza infection. Nat Commun 2019 Sep 11;10(1):4107. doi: 10.1038/s41467–019–11400–9.
  13. Jester BJ, Uyeki TM, Patel A, Koonin L, Jernigan DB. 100 Years of medical countermeasures and pandemic influenza preparedness. Am J Public Health. 2018 Nov;108(11):1469–1472. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304586.

Dr. Richard Hobday, an internationally recognised authority on health in the built environment, is an independent researcher working in the fields of infection control, public health and building design. He is the author of `The Healing Sun’.

March 16, 2020 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment