Posted on April 30, 2009 by: WayCoolDogs

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Typically, the spreading of the virus from animals to humans has been exemplified with the recent years of avian bird flu, SARS, and now the swine flu. But where at one time the virus could eventually become extinct and run itself out through small local communities, the overpopulation of earth combined with massive global travel has helped form the perfect setting for a pandemic in a very short time.

To prove this point, recently the World Health Organization has raised the swine flu threat assessment to a level-five on a six-point scale, characterized by the virus spreading among humans in a minimum of two countries of the same region. With a massive fear that the animal viruses will establish themselves on a global basis, it is proven that for those who are in direct contact with both wild and domestic animals their numbers are decreasing. Which means it is easier to track and monitor diseases such as the swine flu before it can get too big too fast.

But the problem with what is going on now with swine flu is the disease itself has already spread to hundreds and many countries before it was diagnosed and stopped – and has mutated from pig-to-human and  human-to-human — similar to the avian bird flu.  And there is no vaccine right now that will prevent the disease before a person gets it, but one that will help “after the disease” has been diagnosed.

H1N1 Flu Virus (Swine Influenza A Virus)

The  new strain of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus today has spread to 92 cases and one death in Arizona (1 laboratory case confirmed), California (14 cases), Indiana (1 case), Kansas (2 cases), Massachusetts (2 cases), Nebraska (1 case), Michigan (2 cases), Nevada (1 case), New York (51 cases), Ohio (1 case), and Texas (15 cases plus one death).    Consisting of a combination of two pig viruses which carried gene segments from either bird or human viruses –with the H1N1 or swine influenza A virus called the “triple reassortment.” Even though the disease has been dubbed the “swine flu”, the new virus has not been identified as originating from the pigs in Mexico, but instead is infecting and transmitting between humans.

This transmission is what has caused the WHO to increase the pandemic alert to 4, not because it is the swine flu. With over 2000 cases confirmed in Mexico, as of this writing 159 fatalities have occurred. With such a brand-newly developed influenza virus developing from a cross-species jump, what is making this virus so extremely dangerous according to New Scientist, is that the second virus wave of mutation may be different from this first one:

“The virus might be expected to change within the coming months in ways that adapt it to its new host. If the virus persists until the advent of the next influenza season, or takes hold in the southern hemisphere where influenza season is getting underway right now, we might also have to look out for further reassortment events between this virus and the currently circulating human influenza A H3N2 or H1N1 strains.”

How Does a Virus Mutation Affect Dogs?

When we look at migrating swine flu mutation — from avian bird flu, then pigs, and to the human being — we look at change as all viruses have the ability to mutate. These virus mutations cause characteristic changes which depend on “how” and “why” the RNA was mutated. Basically, the mutation which occurs will allow the virus to get past the body’s (animal or human) immunity to the virus. Any virus which affects that body has the ability to mutate and infect the person again. This is because the person’s or animal’s immune system will not be able to tell the difference between the original strain and the newly mutated strain, therefore not being able to have immunity to it.

New strains of virus are produced when the “susceptible population (humans in human flu, dogs in canine influenza, horses in equine influenza, and pigs in swine flu) have no known immunity against the mutated virus which causes the newly developed influenza to grow and spread very rapidly. If a mutation has not occurred, the virus will only infect one species — human influenza will only be able to infect people, canine influenza affects dog, and the equine influenza affects only horses. Unfortunately, studies as far back as 2003 in the racing greyhound of Florida have shown us that canine influenza is actually a virus mutation from the equine influenza virus.

After that, a large canine influenza virus population was seen in pets throughout Southern California, Florida, and New York. If the swine flu and canine influenza combine and mutate, would this be a triple reassortment as the dog flu is already a mutation from the equine influenza? Hmmmm…. makes one pretty sure there is no such thing as a “100% certainty” that dogs cannot get swine flu. The present swine flu is a brand new mutation which should never have occurred either, correct?

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