3 ms·

I'm surprised that there is so much mention of antibiotics in this thread, as the author's book excerpt submitted here mentions a viral disease, and thus far we

I'm surprised that there is so much mention of antibiotics in this thread, as the author's book excerpt submitted here mentions a viral disease, and thus far we have very few "antibiotics" that have any effect on viruses. (Usual usage in English is to use "antibiotic" as a term for a broad-spectrum antibacterial medicine. Effective antiviral medicines have only existed since I became an adult, with the treatments for AIDS being the outstanding examples of antiviral medicines.) I get a lot of my pandemic prevention information from the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy, http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/index.html http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/index.html which, to be sure, has an institutional reason to raise awareness of risks of pandemics, but which also links to a lot of current, sound science reporting on infectious diseases. Novel strains of the influenza viruses or novel strains of coronaviruses are scary to thoughtful epidemiologists because they can be spread by the everyday activity of breathing. If a new coronavirus infection has a high case mortality rate, high virulence, and long latency period, it could kill many people before any of us have a chance to practice the isolation that eventually shut down the spread of SARS back in 2003. Every year, a lot of people get the flu, and a more virulent and more lethal strain of flu--especially one for which current seasonal flu vaccines provide no immunity--could kill a lot of our friends and neighbors.

Lost_BiomedE 14y ago
I mentioned this below. A lot of the high death rate from flu is due to secondary bacterial infection, which antibiotic can treat. Antibiotics would have reduced the mortality of the 1918 flu, which was novel at the time, drastically as bacterial infection counted for the majority of deaths. We are likely to have a decent universal vaccine within the decade. Example, one test by Inovio used a unmatched vaccine on the 1918 Flu with lethal dose in mice. All the controls died but none of the vaccinated. This type of vaccine would reduce the chance greatly that something like a bat flu would emerge without us being prepared. These universal vaccines are made by bacteria or other very fast to produce and cheap methods, compared to the popular egg method today. The biggest issue which the WHO has been working on is to make sure poorer countries have the know-how and distribution networks to ensure they can make and deliver current and next gen vaccines. This is especially important if access to antibiotics is not common and easy.
pygy_ 14y ago
> ... could kill a lot of our friends and neighbors. You're either preemptively addressing survivors, or you forgot to look in the mirror... :-/

Lost_BiomedE 14y ago

I mentioned this below. A lot of the high death rate from flu is due to secondary bacterial infection, which antibiotic can treat. Antibiotics would have reduced the mortality of the 1918 flu, which was novel at the time, drastically as bacterial infection counted for the majority of deaths. We are likely to have a decent universal vaccine within the decade. Example, one test by Inovio used a unmatched vaccine on the 1918 Flu with lethal dose in mice. All the controls died but none of the vaccinated. This type of vaccine would reduce the chance greatly that something like a bat flu would emerge without us being prepared. These universal vaccines are made by bacteria or other very fast to produce and cheap methods, compared to the popular egg method today. The biggest issue which the WHO has been working on is to make sure poorer countries have the know-how and distribution networks to ensure they can make and deliver current and next gen vaccines. This is especially important if access to antibiotics is not common and easy.

pygy_ 14y ago

> ... could kill a lot of our friends and neighbors. You're either preemptively addressing survivors, or you forgot to look in the mirror... :-/