Protection From H1N1 Flu Is The Same As From Seasonal Flu. Part 1 of 3

Protection From H1N1 Flu Is The Same As From Seasonal Flu. The narrative H1N1 flu seems to share many characteristics with the seasonal flu it has mostly replaced, a new study indicates. “Our results are further confirmation that 2009 pandemic H1N1 and seasonal flu have similar transmission dynamics. People seem to be similarly transmissible when ill with either pandemic or seasonal flu, and the viruses are likely to spread in similar ways,” said Benjamin Cowling, lead author of a study appearing in the June 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The orderly news is that this means the preventive measures health authorities have been recommending, such as frequent hand washing, should be equally effective against pandemic flu. “Influenza is very difficult to contain, but drift measures including the availability of pandemic H1N1 vaccines should be able to mitigate the worst of any further epidemics,” added Cowling, who is an assistant professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong.

Cowling and his colleagues followed 284 household members of 99 individuals who had tested unqualified for H1N1. Eight percent of the household contacts also fell ill with the H1N1 virus, about the same transmission rate as seen for the seasonal flu (9 percent), the researchers found.

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