Virus hunter searches for next pandemic - Interview with Nathan Wolfe

[Ronan Kelly]

Virus hunter searches for next pandemic
By TODD ACKERMAN
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 29, 2010, 9:05PM
.
Thomas Campbell Chronicle
Nathan Wolfe searches the world for the next killer pandemic. He recently spoke at the University of Houston.

[X]While most virologists do their work in a lab, Nathan Wolfe travels to far-flung places ? the jungles of Malaysia, the deserts of Saharan Africa ? stalking potential pandemics before they hit. As director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, he's encountered viruses never before seen in humans, among them retroviruses from the same family as HIV. In town recently to deliver a talk at the University of Houston, Wolfe spoke with medical reporter Todd Ackerman about his swashbuckling career, the threat posed by the microbial world and whether swine flu was over-hyped.

Q: How would you describe what you do?

A: We try to understand how pandemics are born, then predict and prevent them. Swine flu, bird flu, Ebola or HIV, pandemics come to us through our interactions with animals, We travel to remote regions with high levels of contact between humans and wildlife and other animals, and study the transfer of viruses to humans.


Continues at;
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7028584.html

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: Virus hunter searches for next pandemic - Interview with Nathan Wolfe

and more from the interview. . .

Q: What's your biggest fear involving your work?
A: My fear is a virus that has the potential to really spread in human populations and also cause disease. Think of a flu virus that has the deadliness of bird flu and the ability to spread of swine flu. That would be a devastating virus for humanity.
. . .
Q: What's your assessment of H1N1?
A: We were lucky. People may think we fought and won against swine flu, but that's not the case. The only reason swine flu wasn't incredibly deadly is that nature handed us a not particularly virulent virus. If it was just nominally more deadly, it would have killed a lot of people because it spread so effectively. We dodged a bullet.

Q: What do you think of the public's increasing skepticism regarding pandemic warnings after worst-case scenarios presented about SARS, bird flu and H1N1 didn't materialize?
A: That's a dangerous complacency. It's like hurricanes. Not every hurricane that forms smashes into the coast, killing people and causing great damage, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't closely monitor them. Pandemics are hurricanes that last months or years and affect the entire planet. People who dismiss the warnings should realize a virus that can spread rapidly and cause disease is out there. It's just a matter of time before it hits.