For now, no decision has been made as to whether a swine flu vaccine would be mass-produced and widely distributed. But the scientific process, which takes time, is under way even as health officials learn more each day about the H1N1 virus.
"I think we should be moving ahead as fast as possible with the vaccine," Dr. James D. Cherry, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at the University of California-Los Angeles, told a group of pediatricians at a conference Monday in Baltimore. "This is real. ... This is going to happen. We need vaccination to control this. Antivirals [medication] will not be enough to control this."
He also worries that people who come down with the flu will be more susceptible to secondary infections that could be lethal.
Researchers know that very little influenza circulates in the summer. There are many schools of thought as to why (more time spent outdoors, perhaps), but one reason seems to be that the virus transmits better from person to person in low humidity and cooler temperatures.
Officials still don't know a lot about the new virus. What they do know is that the strain is not as deadly, for now, as the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed so many millions - though that flu started out fairly mild in the spring and returned with a vengeance during flu season.
At this point, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have seen very little mutation. If the virus remains stable, a vaccine would likely be effective.
But Pekosz said the longer the flu strain stays in circulation, the more chance it has to change and become better at infecting people and better at making them sicker. It is unknown how the virus will interact with human proteins and every time it enters a new person, there is a chance that it will evolve to create a more serious illness.
"The prudent measure is to prevent exposure if at all possible," he said.
But, he added, "the people who are getting infected now ... would most likely be immune to any second wave coming through."
Some even wonder if it wouldn't make sense to expose healthy people to the virus while it is mild, rather than wait for it to possibly turn lethal come fall. While that makes sense biologically, experts say, having "swine flu parties" modeled on the "chicken pox parties" of the 1970s and 1980s where children were intentionally exposed to that disease, would be irresponsible, given how little is known about how the virus will behave.
"The 2009 influenza A H1N1 virus is likely to circulate widely in our communities; if not now then almost certainly in the fall," the CDC's acting director Dr. Richard Besser and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.
"We all have a special responsibility during this time to protect ourselves and protect our neighbors and others in our community by behaving responsibly and doing whatever we can to minimize the spread of disease. A virus that may only cause sniffles and mild inconvenience in one person may put the next into the hospital."
The CDC used to begin each flu season with a prediction of its severity, Schaffner said. Agency officials no longer do that.
"The crystal balls remain in the drawer," he said. "We don't take them out anymore."
Six Md. schools set to reopen on word of CDC. PG 3
