(CIDRAP News) – The novel H1N1 (swine) influenza now circling the globe causes more serious lung disease than seasonal flu strains and sheds from the lung and throat tissue where it reproduces at higher rates, according to two animal studies published today—findings that could explain autopsies and case reports of severe pneumonia as well as the virus's rapid spread.
And while the studies, conducted in ferrets and mice, agree that the new flu passes fairly well between individuals, they disagree over the effectiveness of different modes of transmission.
A team from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands found that the virus transmits easily between ferrets housed in cages whose walls are 4 inches apart. But a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the novel virus only transmitted well when the ferrets shared direct contact—a sign, that team said, that the new virus has not yet fully adapted to mammals.
The European team, though, warned that the new H1N1 is adapted enough to compete with seasonal flu strains for turf in humans. It "has the ability to persist in the human population, potentially with more severe clinical consequences," they wrote.
Both studies were published online today by the journal Science
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