David Lewis, a 19-year-old U.S. Army private, went on a 50-mile hike with his unit from Fort Dix on February 5, 1976. He collapsed and died in the bitter cold. An autopsy test unexpectedly came back positive. H1N1 swine influenza virus.
Viral disease surveillance at Fort Dix has found 13 additional cases among recruits hospitalized with respiratory illness. Additional serum antibody testing has found more than 200 recruits were infected but not hospitalized. New swine H1N1 strain.
Alarm bells immediately sounded within the epidemiology community. Could Lewis Pvt.’s death from H1N1 swine flu be the harbinger of another global pandemic like the devastating H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 1918? About 50 million people worldwide?
The U.S. government acted quickly. On March 24, 1976, President Gerald Ford announced a plan to “vaccinate every man, woman, and child in America.” On October 1, 1976, A massive immunization campaign has begun.
Meanwhile, the small outbreak that initially emerged at Fort Dix quickly subsided, and there have been no new cases on base since February. Army Col. Frank Topp, who led the Fort Dix virus investigation, later said, “We’ve shown pretty clearly that (the virus) hasn’t gone anywhere but Fort Dix… it’s gone.”
Nonetheless, biomedical scientists around the world are concerned about the outbreak and have witnessed the mass vaccination program in the United States. H1N1 Swine Influenza Vaccine Research and Development Program Begins At home. As the world entered the winter season of 1976-77, the world waited and prepared for the H1N1 swine flu pandemic that never came.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Experienced infectious disease epidemiologistI claim to have been there. The unintended consequences of seemingly cautious people But in the end, it was unnecessary preparation.
What’s weird about the H1N1 Russian flu pandemic?
Epidemiologically, a novel pandemic influenza virus had emerged, but it was not the expected H1N1 swine virus.
In November 1977, Russian health authorities reported the detection of a human, non-swine H1N1 flu strain in Moscow. By the end of that month, it had been reported throughout the Soviet Union. Soon worldwide.
Compared to other flus, This pandemic was unusual. First, it had a low mortality rate, about a third of most flu strains. Second, it regularly attacked only people under the age of 26. Finally, unlike other emerging pandemic flu viruses in the past, it did not replace the existing circulating H3N2 subtype that was the seasonal flu that year. Instead, two flu strains circulated side by side: the new H1N1 and the old H3N2.
Here the story takes another turn. Microbiologist Peter Palese What was applied at that time A new technique called RNA oligonucleotide mapping To study the genetic makeup of the new H1N1 Russian flu virus, he and his colleagues grew the virus in the lab, then used an RNA-snipping enzyme to cut the viral genome into hundreds of pieces. By unfolding the cut RNA in two dimensions based on size and charge, the RNA pieces created a unique fingerprint-like map of spots.
When Palese compared the spot pattern of the 1977 H1N1 Russian flu to several other flu viruses, he was surprised to find that this “new” virus was essentially Identical to existing human influenza H1N1 strains It became extinct in the early 1950s.
So the 1977 Russian flu virus was actually a strain that had disappeared from the planet 25 years earlier, but somehow managed to come back into circulation. This explains why it only affected young people. Older people were already infected and had developed immunity when the virus first circulated in its original form decades ago.
So how did the ancient strains recover from extinction?
Refine the timeline of the resurrected virus
Despite its name, the Russian flu probably did not actually originate in Russia. The first public reports of the virus came from Russia, but later reports from China provided evidence that it was first detected in May and June of 1977. In the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
Scientists used detailed genetic studies of several samples of the 1977 virus in 2010. pinpoint the date of our earliest common ancestor. this “molecular clock“According to the data, the virus first infected people a full year ago, in April or May of 1976.
So the best evidence is that the 1977 Russian flu did indeed originate, or rather ‘re-emerged’, in or near Tianjin, China, in the spring of 1976.
Frozen laboratory virus
Could it be mere coincidence that just months after Sergeant Lewis died from H1N1 swine flu, the previously extinct H1N1 flu strain suddenly re-entered the human population?
Influenza virologists around the world have been using freezers for years to preserve strains of influenza viruses, including some that have been extinct in the wild. In 1976, fears of a new H1N1 swine flu pandemic in the United States spread worldwide. H1N1 virus and vaccine research surges. It was certainly possible that one of these stockpiled viruses could accidentally be released in any country where H1N1 research was underway, including China, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. And probably other countries as well.
Years after its resurgence, microbiologist Palese recalled a personal conversation he had with Qiming Chu, then China’s leading influenza expert. Palese wrote in 2004 that “the introduction of the H1N1 virus in 1977 was Results of vaccine trials in the Far East It involves a challenge against thousands of military recruits infected with a live H1N1 virus.”
It’s unclear exactly how such an accidental release occurred during vaccine testing, but there are two main possibilities: First, scientists may have used a revived H1N1 virus as starting material for development. alive, attenuated H1N1 vaccine. If the virus in the vaccine was not weakened enough, it could have spread from person to person. Another possibility is that researchers were testing the immunity provided by the existing H1N1 vaccine using a live, resurrected virus, and it accidentally escaped the research setting.
Whatever the specific mechanism of release, the detailed location and timing of the origin of the epidemic, combined with the status of Chu and Palese as highly reliable sources, provide strong evidence that the Russian flu pandemic virus originated from an accidental release in China.
A sobering history lesson
The resurgence of the extinct but dangerous human-adapted H1N1 virus comes as the world struggles to prevent the imminent emergence of a swine H1N1 flu pandemic. People were so worried about the possibility of a new pandemic that they accidentally caused one. Self-fulfilling prophecy pandemic.
I don’t mean to be judgmental here. In fact, my point is that in the epidemiological fog of 1976, with the growing anxiety about a global pandemic, any research institute in any country could have accidentally released a resurgent virus called the Russian flu. In the global rush to prevent a new pandemic of H1N1 swine flu at Fort Dix through research and vaccination, an accident could have happened anywhere.
Of course, biocontainment facilities and policies have improved dramatically over the past half century. But at the same time, there has been an equally dramatic Proliferation of high-density laboratories Worldwide.
Overreaction. Unintended consequences. Making things worse. Self-fulfilling prophecy. There are many terms to describe how the best intentions can go wrong. The world, still reeling from COVID-19, now faces new threats from species-based diseases such as avian influenza viruses and mpox viruses. It is important to respond quickly to these new threats to prevent another global disease catastrophe. We must respond quickly, but not too quickly. History tells us.
Donald S. Burke Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Health Sciences and Policy and Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. This article was republished from conversation ~Below Creative Commons License. Read it Original article.
