Scientists do not yet know how to eradicate the virus that causes the flu . However, it is possible to circumvent it through vaccination. Below we have selected ten curiosities related to this infectious disease:
1. Ungrateful company
If we were to draw the virus that causes the flu , we would sketch a sun. “The rays would be its most important proteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, which form spicules inserted in its spherical surface”, explains María Ángeles Marcos, head of Virology at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. In the tropics it is free to roam all year round, but in our latitude its high season comes with the cold. This pathogen is changing, hence from one year to another the vaccine must be updated and we have to prick ourselves again. “It cannot be eradicated, but it can be controlled better,” says Marcos.
2. Learn to cough
The virus is transmitted by air, so “although it is very contagious, measures such as hand washing or covering the mouth when sneezing and coughing are very efficient,” Marcos clarifies. It is not something trivial, because a study by Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand, carried out in the 2009 pandemic revealed that only 4.7% of people who coughed or sneezed in public places did it correctly , that is to say, covering the mouth with a cloth, a handkerchief or the own arm.
3. A squatter with no desire to leave
Once in the airways, the virus hijacks the cell’s machinery to multiply. “The amount of virus that comes out of a single one to infect others is incalculable,” says Marcos. Unlike the cold, the flu lasts longer – seven days – and causes fever, muscle pain, cough, and tiredness. Antivirals are taken within the first 48 hours after symptoms start, but they are only given to patients with other ailments. “The person with a healthy immune system requires symptomatic treatment and a lot of patience”, advises the doctor.
4. The origin of pandemics is an enigma
Each new strain that has been transmitted from person to person has infected a quarter or more of the world’s population in less than two years. In the 20th century there have been four pandemics and their origin remains a mystery. The most widely accepted explanation is that viruses have their reservoir in wild waterfowl and from these they spread to other species. More controversial hypotheses suggest that some people could be asymptomatic carriers and a potential source of infection or that viral agents reside in the upper layers of the atmosphere that descend to the surface carried by comets or air currents.
5. One puncture a year, the best we have
Scientists have spent decades pursuing a universal vaccine against infection, that is, a single prick that protects us for life. However, the challenge is resisting. “The problem is that this treatment must be based on some common protein in the two types of influenza that affect humans, A and B, and in all their subtypes, and it is difficult to find the appropriate molecule”, explains Ernest Milián, who researches new vaccine manufacturing methods at the National Research Council of Canada. In addition, the effectiveness of the immunization that we use now is not very high, since it is estimated that it protects 60% of those vaccinated . In any case, and according to Marcos, “it is the best tool we have.”
6. Your child is a super contagator
The specialists now pose a new challenge: to reduce the transmission of the virus by vaccinating the supercontagators. Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine shows that extending immunization in children is one of the most efficient strategies to stop the disease, since the transmission of the infection through them is exponential. However, this does not mean that the rest of the population at risk will stop being vaccinated. To avoid complications from the flu , pregnant women , people with chronic diseases, cancer, AIDS or other health problems, and those over 65 should do so.
7. Immunized by an egg
Pharmaceutical companies make hundreds of millions of vaccines each season, and they do so with the same technology as in 1940: chicken eggs. To obtain the antigen, the virus has to grow on a large scale in a medium with live cells, but “one of the problems is that each egg generates a dose, and in a pandemic it would be impossible to protect the entire population. Furthermore, if the origin of the microbe was avian, the supply of eggs could plummet “, explains Milián. An innovative way to make them is by culturing insect or mammalian cells. This method is “faster and cheaper”, clarifies the researcher.
8. Real-time data to protect the population
“When a hurricane forms, you need to know where its eye is to predict when, where and with what intensity it will hit land,” explains Yamir Moreno, researcher for the GripeNet.es initiative. The same thing is done with this virus that visits us in winter. “We use data from thousands of volunteers who inform us of their health and we predict the path of the infection to take action,” adds Moreno. This system, designed at the University of Zaragoza, has the participation of about a thousand Spaniards and is one of many in the world who seek to anticipate the course of infectious diseases to alleviate their effects.
9. The Internet gives us a hand
The battalion of sentinel doctors who monitor the disease has now been joined by a great ally: the Web. Last year the scientific journal PNAS published a new model called ARGO (for ‘autoregression with Google’) that manages to predict flu outbreaks a week or two earlier than previously used methods. It does this by combining traditional epidemiological information with user searches on the internet. It represents one of the benefits of health big data, “although we are still working on how to integrate the data offered by new technologies in our models. For example, we know that online searches can give false positives while social networks seem more reliable. “explains Moreno.
10. How to better understand the guts of viruses
Scientists researching the flu are divided into two camps and cannot see each other. Those who belong to Scientists for Science seek to generate new pathogens in the laboratory that are especially lethal and contagious. According to them, these experiments could generate precious knowledge to improve vaccines. On the contrary, researchers at the Cambridge Working Group fear that one of these viruses will escape from the laboratory and cause a pandemic, so they have fought until these trials are temporarily stopped in the United States.
Image: Dan Higgins, Douglas Jordan, USCDCP
