Why are public health officials worried about novel H1N1?
A. Health officials are concerned because very few people in the world have immunity to novel H1N1. This means that the virus has the capacity to cause a pandemic, which is a worldwide epidemic. Typically, many more people become ill and die during pandemics than during yearly, seasonal epidemics of influenza. Some pandemics are more damaging than others. For example, the pandemics of 1957 and 1968 killed 4 million and 6 million people, respectively. On the other hand, the pandemic of 1918 killed between 20 million and 50 million people. Q. Where did this novel H1N1 virus come from? A. Novel H1N1 virus was created in nature. Influenza viruses, like all viruses, reproduce themselves in cells. But influenza doesn’t just grow in human cells; it also can grow in cells of pigs and birds. When two or three different influenza viruses grow in the same cell, they can exchange genetic material, creating an entirely new virus. The current H1N1 virus is a combination of bird, human and pig influe
