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Click the links below to read the answers to these questions:
Q: What is pandemic influenza (flu)?
A: A pandemic is a worldwide disease outbreak. A disease becomes a pandemic when it spreads easily and quickly throughout many regions of the world, affecting a large percentage of population.
Pandemics tend to cause major social and economic disruption because they affect large numbers of the work force, placing a strain on essential services. Though rare, pandemic influenza outbreaks are recurring events in human history. During the past 100+ years, pandemic flu occurred in 1889, 1918, 1957, and 1968.
A pandemic influenza starts when 3 conditions are met:
- A previously unknown strain of flu virus emerges.
- The new virus is capable of causing disease in humans.
- The virus can be passed among people through coughing and sneezing as easily as ordinary, seasonal flu.
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Q: How is pandemic flu different from seasonal flu?
A: Pandemic flu has symptoms similar to ordinary flu: fever, headache, aches and pains, tiredness, stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat, and cough. However, because people have no immunity to the new virus, it spreads rapidly and is likely to cause more serious illness. It affects even healthy young adults who normally have greater resistance to flu viruses than very young, elderly, and immune-compromised individuals.
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Q: Is avian influenza (bird flu) a pandemic influenza?
A: Avian influenza (also called bird flu) refers to the H5N1 virus. Avian influenza H5N1 is not the same as a pandemic influenza. The H5N1 strain has not yet met the third condition for creating a pandemic — it is not easily transmitted between humans. Many health officials think the H5N1 virus has the potential to become a pandemic influenza, and it is being carefully monitored. Other new, severe influenza viruses may emerge that are capable of becoming the source of the world's next pandemic influenza.
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Q: Will there be a vaccine for pandemic influenza?
A: Commercial vaccine production cannot commence in advance of a pandemic outbreak. Because scientists must precisely identify a new virus and develop a closely matched antigen, an effective vaccine cannot be developed until the virus has emerged.
Once scientists analyze the pandemic flu virus, they can begin to produce a virus-specific vaccine. Then, large-scale vaccine production can begin.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first vaccine for humans that may provide early limited protection against the current known strain of the H5N1 virus. The vaccine will not be sold commercially, but has been included in the federal government's National Stockpile for distribution by public health officials, if needed, while a virus-specific vaccine can be developed and produced.
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Q: Are antivirals available for prevention and treatment?
A: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), four antiviral prescription drugs are available to treat symptoms and help reduce transmission of flu virus.
Antiviral medications are most often used to help control flu outbreaks in institutions with populations who are at high risk of serious complications from influenza or are in close proximity (such as hospital wards and nursing homes). Those most likely to benefit from antiviral drugs are the elderly, infants, pregnant women, and individuals with chronic medical conditions. Most healthy people recover from ordinary influenza without complications.
The CDC has provided guidelines to help physicians decide when it is appropriate to prescribe an antiviral drug for treatment of currently-circulating ordinary influenza A and B viruses. It's important to note that the CDC states "the guidelines for use of influenza antiviral medications are not intended as recommendations for use of these medications in other situations, such as outbreaks of new strains of avian influenza."
The supply of antiviral drugs will probably be inadequate early in a pandemic. Public health officials will make decisions about how to make best use of available supplies.
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Q: How do I protect myself and my family from pandemic influenza?
A: Ordinary, seasonal flu and a pandemic flu are spread in the same way. The virus spreads when someone with the flu coughs or sneezes, and droplets containing the virus come in contact with another person’s nose, mouth, or eyes. It can also spread when people with the flu cough or sneeze into their hands and contaminate things they touch. Other people can become infected if they touch the same object and then touch their face.
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Q: Can anything be done to stop a pandemic?
A: Governments and health officials will try to slow or stop the spread of pandemic flu. Much will depend on the ability to limit movement into and out of an affected area in an effort to contain an emerging virus that exhibits pandemic potential. Using available supplies of antiviral drugs prophylactically at the beginning of a pandemic to reduce the spread of a new virus may diminish its ability to mutate into a fully-transmittable strain, or at least slow it down.
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If you are a UCSD employee and have questions about pandemic/ epidemic preparedness planning at UCSD, contact Emergency Services, (858) 534-1064 or 534-3823.
If you are a UCSD student and want information about immunizations, contact Student Health Services, (858) 534-3300.
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