Meanwhile, back at the ranch

This is what we live for. This is what we were trained to do. It reminds me of that movie Jarhead. They we’re Marine snipers trained to do only one thing — shoot. Once they got to war they never even fired a single bullet. It’s quite disheartening that after all of those years of training and hard work you never ever get to use it.

News broke out Tuesday morning about an unusual flu strain, similar to swine flu, affecting two kids in San Diego, California. The next day 3 more cases appeared, 2 in San Antonio, Texas and another one back in San Diego, California. Although the flu strain wasn’t considered deadly — all patients recovered rather quickly — but it was in the best interest of the public that this be treated as if it was a deadly one. What makes this case unusual is that all of the patients never had contact with pigs. It is rare for animal virus strains to be transmitted to humans since virus receptor sites in humans are different than that of animals. But close proximity of humans to animals causes these viruses to mutate and infect humans. Usually people infected with animal flu strains, such as bird flu or swine flu, are those that work closely with them, like breeders and animal handlers.

Then Friday morning came with the bad news. 68 deaths were reported in Mexico with hundreds more suffering from flu like symptoms. Just as I had suspected. With San Diego and San Antonio being so close to the border the flu strain could have come from the south. It has already gone into an epidemic, something that we as virologist don’t wish for, but this is what were trained to do. All of those mock training and exercise on what to do during an outbreak or a pandemic, this is what we do for a living. It’s a little scary but I must admit that this is an exciting time to be an influenza virologist right now, because now we can finally fire that single shot that we have been training for.

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