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UGA Profs and Docs Talk Pandemic Flu


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June 3, 2009

“I think the medical surveillance community should be congratulated for the way they were able to detect the signs of what might be pandemic influenza,” said UGA epidemiology professor Christopher Whalen at a public forum put on May 28 by UGA’s College of Public Health. The key words in that sentence? Might be. Once the story spread widely through the press, Whalen said, the narrative became more like ’this is pandemic flu.’ In fact, public health officials still don’t know just what route the “H1N1” flu (a.k.a., swine flu) will take.

“It has evolved to be less of a concern than it was initially,” said Northeast Georgia District Health Director Dr. Claude Burnett, who also participated in the forum, but still, “everybody’s on alert.” Burnett added, “We are ready to do more, but it looks like it’s probably going to taper off”—though the real question pertains to what happens this fall, when public health officials (and vaccine manufacturers) may have to deal with both H1N1 and the normal seasonal flu. “There’s a lot of uncertainty at this point what will be done in the fall vis-a-vis a vaccine for this flu,” Burnett said. That’s because the response depends intimately on how the flu continues to behave this year. Officials are closely watching its progress in South America this summer (which is winter there) in an effort to gain more knowledge.

Dr. Steven Valeika, an infectious disease epidemiologist and veterinarian in the College of Public Health, said that the concern with H1N1 “is that it’s a brand-new flu virus,” making this year’s situation similar to the flu epidemics of 1918, 1957 and 1968. H1N1’s components have been seen individually in bird viruses, pig viruses and human viruses over the years, Valeika said, but not all together in one virus until now. And, he said, graphing cases of the 1918 flu against the age of its victims creates a W-shaped curve, as opposed to the U-shaped curve of the normal seasonal flu (which disproportionately affects the very young and the very old). In other words, the 1918 flu graph shows a “huge peak” in victims in the 25- to 35-year-old age group, Valeika said.

“This unfortunately didn’t have a pig on it,” said Burnett, holding up a copy of the local public health brochure on pandemic flu, which prominently depicts a rooster in profile as seen on billboards around town. “But the message is largely the same.” That message is mainly to stay home from work, school, church and other large gatherings if you come down with a flu, and to try to prevent spreading the flu through hand contact or coughing. (The full brochure is available online at www.publichealthathens.com.)

Asked an audience member, “So we don’t have to wear those masks?”

“Wear the masks if you’re sick,” Valeika responded, “not if you’re worried about becoming sick.” He added (to laughs), “…unless they become stylish—I mean, they did during the SARS epidemic.”

Written by:  Ben Emanuel
Flagpole Magazine


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The full brochure is available online at www.publichealthathens.com.