More than 3,000 people in Mexico have contracted swine flu, and some of these have died, according to media reports.
Judging from the spread of the disease, the outbreak probably began early last month or maybe even earlier. No details on its origin have been reported.
Should it be called swine flu because the virus genome contains pig genes? Either way, there is clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.
Where there are swine, there is common swine flu. The H1N1, H3N1 and H3N2 strains of swine flu are all present in Taiwan. Analysis shows that H3N1 is made up of human and swine viruses, but there is a low likelihood that it will cause disease in pigs.
Generally speaking, the incubation period for swine flu is very short, and the main symptoms are fever and coughing. Once it breaks out, all pigs on a given farm will likely be infected, but the disease usually recedes in about three weeks. The death rate for infected pigs is very low unless they are infected by other bacteria at the same time.
Generally speaking, a pig farm suffers swine flu every one or two years. Despite it being available, a vaccine has not been approved in Taiwan because of relatively poor effectiveness and little economic benefit.
The disease is a type of zoonosis, which means it is spread between humans and animals under normal conditions, such as via droplets or in the air at close distances.
Humans do not contract swine flu simply by consuming pork or other products made from swine, nor do we contract new types of the H1N1 virus by eating pork.
To date, no one in Taiwan has been infected by the swine flu. Some experts suggest that human vaccines be developed immediately and that several million doses of Tamiflu be kept in stock, together with massive amounts of masks.
I believe that developing vaccines may be too slow a response to a critical situation. It takes time to develop effective and safe vaccines.
In 1976, a soldier in New Jersey was infected with the H1N1 virus. In about two months, 230 people had been infected, and one had died. The US government rushed to produce a vaccine within the month, but several people died from its strong side effects. Despite the sound reasoning for vaccine development, this case remains a valuable reminder.
During the SARS outbreak in 2003, Taiwan spent several billion New Taiwan dollars on the development of new vaccines, but in the end the only result was a few research papers. Stocking up on vaccines that can treat swine flu is probably necessary, but we do not need 5 million doses.
Since Taiwan’s latest foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, almost NT$10 million (US$302,000) has been spent annually to keep a stock of 5 million doses of vaccine. More than a decade has passed since the incident, and this stock has never been used.
Although swine flu is frightening, it is not very likely that a major outbreak will occur if health authorities invest manpower in frontline prevention and carry out quarantine measures, and if the public actively cooperates, reports suspected cases and remains fully prepared. If this happens, there is no reason for Taiwanese to panic.
Finally, pig farmers who return from visits to the US or Mexico should not be in contact with their own pigs for three or four days after returning to avoid infecting them and turning them into virus hosts.
Lai Shiow-suey is an honorary professor in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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