ARCHIVE - Can Coughs and Sneezes Prevent Diseases? 2009

Can Coughs and Sneezes Prevent Diseases?   November 2009

H1N1 and the Common Cold

I read an interesting article in New Scientist (12 November 2009) a few days ago which I thought I would share here, because any sort of 'good news' on the H1N1 pandemic is a rare thing indeed.

Except for those of us who blog on this subject any news on the epidemic in Ukraine has been very hard to come by and still is.                                                           

The corporate media news 'blackout' on the situation in Ukraine has fed into the scepticism already widespread around the origins of the virus and the safety of the vaccines Big Pharma is currently merchandising.

Government and media silence on an outbreak that has apparently closed borders and initiated martial law in Europe, has further damaged the credibility of both 'estates' and has increased suspicions that were already rife, around the role of such multinational giants as Baxter International, GlaxoSmithKline, Gilead and the whole WHO sponsored pandemic fear trade fair.

Leaving aside the culpability of Big Pharma, the WHO, national governments and the mainstream media for their part of the advertising campaign (in what has been a pandemic of dubious propaganda)... along with all the other epidemics allegedly in current circulation, there is just a glimmer of hope.

Despite the dire predictions of the WHO epidemiologists, trumpeted in the mainstream media.... so far (touching wood) Europe has been spared the worse ravages of what may be a cocktail of lethal pathogens now at large worldwide for whatever reason?

The scientific community are discussing these developments and are considering the reasons for the failure (thus far) of H1N1 infection modelling in Europe at least.

"It is really surprising that there has not been more pandemic flu activity in many European countries," says Arnold Monto, an American epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The possible reason for the slow-down in pig flu infection rate could be, they suggest, another virus.

Rhinovirus they say, the bug that is responsible for the common cold, may be playing a part in holding back the advance H1N1 (and its derivatives?) across Europe.

Research in France at the University of Lyon by Casalegno et al (October 2009) cites unpublished data which may support this hypothesis: -

"The A(H1N1) circulation in France, like in other European countries (Sweden), is still reported as sporadic.

The incidence of A(H1N1)v infections monitored in the community by the French National Influenza Centre has remained stable for 6 weeks from week 37 to week 42 (159 cases per 100,000 inhabitants).

This is right above the epidemic cut-off of 114 cases per 100,000 inhabitants two months after the start of the new school year. This delay in the A(H1N1)v outbreak expansion is puzzling.

At the same time, we report a high rhinovirus activity (34.5 % of samples positive for rhinovirus) in the community and in the hospital (unpublished data)."

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19354

Another paper, this time by Swedish researchers also suggested that the common cold might be a protective factor in H1N1 infection.

The cold season is linked to the academic year peaking during the 'back to school months' during September and October in the northern hemisphere.

Linde et al, report on research done at the Department of Epidemiology, Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, Solna which also expresses puzzlement around the progress of the H1N1 virus.

They point out that in a recent Eurosurveillance article:-

"In Sweden, and some other European countries, the spread increased after the end of the holidays, but after four weeks of increasing activity the spread suddenly declined, despite similar weather conditions and social behaviour."

Limitation by herd immunity induced by the spread that actually took place is possible, but not very likely, as the reported number of infections and of influenza-like disease in total was rather low.

"Also, the experience from the United States and the United Kingdom, with considerable, though patchy, spread of the virus during late spring and summer, despite a climate unfavourable to influenza, makes it likely that the virus would have managed to reach a substantial peak in Sweden in early October, unless other factors than the weather affected the spread."

"Laboratories in Sweden conducting extended viral diagnosis on samples sent for influenza examination were asked what viruses they found in the influenza-negative samples, and the answer was unanimous: rhinoviruses dominated, with sporadic findings of other respiratory viruses, such as enteroviruses and adenoviruses", say Linde et al .

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19390http:

Researchers in Norway report rhinovirus rose there as flu fell in August, while Ian Mackay at the University of Queensland found the same trend in Australia.

What's more, in March, Mackay reported that people with rhinovirus are less likely to be infected with a second virus than people with other viruses, and are just one-third as likely to have simultaneous seasonal flu (Journal of Clinical Virology).

In the New Scientist article by Deborah MacKenzie she concludes with the suggestion that rhinovirus may hold out hope of a means of blocking H1N1 in future, coughs and sneezes may not only 'spread diseases', but paradoxically possible protection from much worse diseases?

"The effects of rhinovirus, often dismissed as "only" a cold" writes MacKenzie.... are too poorly understood, say all the researchers.

Its seeming ability to block swine flu may already have saved lives in France. It may even lead to a drug that induces the antiviral state, but without the sniffles."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427345.100-common-cold-may-hold-off-swine-flu.html

The mechanism by which the common cold may be thwarting the progress of swine flu is well understood by virologists, it is known as virus interference.

SCi-Tech Encyclopedia defines virus interference thus:-

"Inhibition of the replication of a virus by a previous infection with another virus. The two viruses may be unrelated, related, or identical. In some cases, virus interference may take place even if the first virus was inactivated.

The term mutual exclusion has been applied to this phenomenon in bacterial viruses.

http://www.answers.com/topic/virus-interference

So, in the middle of all the gloom around the reported attack rate of H1N1 and the fight against it, and with cases of Tamiflu resistant flu strains being reported in Cardiff, Wales this week.... here is a glimmer of hope from Europe, although this effect it should be noted, has been less obvious in North America.

MacKenzie asks "why hasn't the US, for example seen a dip in pandemic cases during a back-to-school rhinovirus outbreak?"

Mackay speculates that interference from rhinovirus may not be enough to fend off flu if someone is exposed repeatedly.

There were far more cases of swine flu in the US in September than in Europe."

Although the effect on the infection rate for 'swine flu' may not have been as dramatic (I have no data in front of me about the severity of the rhinovirus in different regions of North America this year) the overall cold effect may still have been protective to some degree?

Epilogue

It is likely that the cold season may have boosted the immune systems of its victims to better fight off the H1N1 attacks that they are subsequently exposed to?

In the meantime, hand washing and immune system boosting by dietary means are the best defences we have, well... in the absence of catching a cold it seems anyway?

More on the wonderful world of viruses on my previous post, the 1 October 2008 blog 'Cosmic Ancestry:- is God a Virus?'

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