Any examples of people with spring 1918 exposure who died of fall 1918 exposure?

[marcovth]

Hello ...

I am not a scientist, so please forgive if this is a stupid question.

I was wondering if scientist have found examples of people who
survived the mild spring version of the 1918 flu, but who died from
the deadly fall/winter?

You would expect that these people would have been fully immunized
by the first exposure. But if many died of a second exposure anyway,
would it be possible that the upcoming 2009 H1N1 vaccinations could
actually induce a cytokine storm rather than prevent it when people
get infected (again) this coming winter?

In other words, is it possible that the vaccinations to the 2009 Mexican
flu could have the opposite effect, especially in young adults ???

Thanks in advance for your reply.

- Marco.

 

[kathybb]

Re: Any examples of people with spring 1918 exposure who died of fall 1918 exposure?

This is from The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry "Many victims of the first wave demonstrated significant resistance to the second wave, which provides strong evidence that the deatly virus was a variant of the mild one" page 176 copywrite 2004.

 

[gsgs]

Re: Any examples of people with spring 1918 exposure who died of fall 1918 exposure?

he also mentioned that House, (advisor of Wilson ?) got it in all 3 waves
I estimate you were ~half as likely to die in wave 2, if you had it in wave 1

 

[marcovth]

Re: Any examples of people with spring 1918 exposure who died of fall 1918 exposure?

Thanks a lot for the quick replies.

If House got three times infected, does that mean you can still get the flu (and potentially die from it) after a vaccination of the current H1N1 ?

 

[gsgs]

Re: Any examples of people with spring 1918 exposure who died of fall 1918 exposure?

vaccine doesn't help so much individually.
They claim for 70% efficiency or such, well, it can hardly be "better"
than the real infection.

But collectively it could be decicive to stop the spread

i.e. if combined with other measures

vaccine is just one of the measures in the models, not even the
most important one, AFAIR

 

[wotan]

Re: Any examples of people with spring 1918 exposure who died of fall 1918 exposure?

I think 70% efficiency comes from the fact that they make assumptions about what three strains require the most protection against, but there are different strains, or mutations, etc. They could produce a vaccine against the current form of the virus, but who's to say that will actually be effective against the form that comes in the fall? A fall return could be very much the same virus or it could be dramatically different, depending on what, if anything happens in the Southern Hemisphere or in SE Asia, for instance.