Scientists solve 1918 bird flu mystery
Monkey see, monkey flu
By Chris Williams
Published Thursday 18th January 2007 14:14 GMT
Scientists appear to have solved an enduring mystery surrounding
the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu which killed millions
worldwide.
Estimates say the epidemic took 50 million lives, more than the
First World War. Unlike most bird flu strains, it was lethal
amongst young, healthy people.
A Canadian lab reconstucted the Spanish flu virus from human
tissues preserved in the Alaskan permafrost and infected macaque
monkeys. Their findings were reported on Thursday in the journal
Nature, and should give a better view of how the virus killed
humans than earlier work with infected mice.
It turns out that the H1N1 Spanish flu virus (the current bird flu
threat is from H5N1, the nomeclature derived from the proteins
which coat the virus) killed 50 million by over-stimulating their
immune system, causing the lungs to inflame and rapidly fill with
liquid. Lead author Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University
of Wisconsin said: "Essentially people are drowned by
themselves."
So a young, healthy person with a young,
healthy immune system would be a ripe victim for the 1918 strain.
Associated Press reports co-author Michael Katze, of the University
of Wahington, said: "It was the robustness of the immune system
that helped victimize them."
The researchers write that symptoms of the disease appeared within
24 hours of the monkeys' exposure to Spanish flu. They became so
ill they were were euthanised after only 8 days of a scheduled 21
day trial.
The type of cascading immune response the virus induced is known as
a "cytokine storm".
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/08/drug_trial_cancer/Cytokines
are the protein messengers released by cells which modulate the
immune system. A comparable cytokine storm was implicated in the
disastrous drug trial last year which hospitalised six
volunteers.
The team's work to rebuild and study Spanish flu will help
understanding of how the rapidly-evolving disease becomes more
deadly. The current H5N1 strain appears to have similar
immune-fiddling powers in birds.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/18/spanish_monkey_flu/
