Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar hosted a detailed talk about a virus that's causing concern around the world. The recent cause of an interruption in local school openings, H1N1 information was presented in timely fashion by Dr. Abdullatif Al-Khal, head of the communicable disease unit at Hamad Medical Corporation, and Dr. Ravinder Mamtani, Professor of Public Health at WCMC-Q.
"A totally new virus called 'Influenza A (H1N1) of Swine Origin,' now called 'pandemic (H1N1) 2009,' took the world by surprise and has become the first global influenza pandemic for this century," Dr. Al-Khal said. "It spread rapidly all over the world in a matter of a few weeks despite attempts to implement strict control measures in many countries."
Since experts are uncertain about how widely the virus will spread and how severe it could become, it has gathered much media attention. To ease concerns, the speakers discussed terminology that would help the community understand the scale of the problem and what they can do about it.
"The word pandemic can inspire fear among people, but when you look at the criteria health experts use to apply this term, you can put the virus into perspective," said Dr. Mamtani. "A virus becomes a pandemic when it is new, when it causes illness and when it spreads easily—the term is not associated with the death rate, which in this case is still relatively low."
The speakers said that knowledge about H1N1—from a public health and prevention point of view—is the best tool one can have against the virus. They offered a historical glimpse of the viruses that have emerged and spread over the past 100 years to claim millions of lives—Spanish Flu, Asian Flu and Hong Kong Flu.
One unusual aspect of H1N1 is that, while many viruses are life-threatening among the elderly, this virus so far causes higher mortality among adults under 50 years of age, Dr. Mamtani said.