Can you get swine flu more than once?

[mrbordeaux]

It seems that none of the news about swine flu talk about whether or not after once getting the swine flu and recovering have you developed immunity and that you will not get it again?  

[margypops]

You know I did hear it gave you immunity but dont count on my word I only think I heard it ,google it there may be information about it ,and let us know ...

[margypops]

PS I did hear today there may not be enough to go round, maybe we'll have to drawer straws out of a Hat LOL

[Paxiled]

Of course you can get "it" again, but "it" won't necessarily be the exact same thing.  Every year we have what's called seasonal flu, and most of us have had flu dozens of times at least in our lives.  The current "swine" flu is a combination of three flus that have been around before but not in this combination; as all viruses do, this one will continue to evolve as we do in order to stay alive, and as it changes it will evade our immunity.  But so far it's much more benign than seasonal flu, and let's hope it stays that way.  Eventually, it most likely will merge with seasonal flu.  This adaptation is why flu vaccines have to change every year.  So what you'll do is develop some immunity to it, but still be vulnerable as it evolves.  But remember, it's just the flu, which is to say most of us will be fine, but if you have a weakened system flu can be the straw that breaks the camel's back.  And like all flus, it may be benign, but when you have it it's a pain in the you know what.

[birdie0907]

The chief medical officer for Ontario, Canada says there is no proof that the so called "second wave" of flu in the 1919 outbreaks that killed so many people was even the same strain. He says the widespread media talk that the second wave was the strongest may therefore be bunk, if there was no second wave.
He also says the second big media myth is we are overdue for a pandemic. In actuality, each pandemic arises from the random event of a virus mutation which must be able to survive in its new host. LA is overdue for an earthquake due to pressure building up in the faults in the earth, but pandemics do not have any relationship to span of time since the last one, so we could get 3 in a row in a year or none for ten thousand years.

[Paxiled]

Also, the 1918 epidemic occurred when the world's healthiest population was at one of its unhealthiest periods, due to the extreme conditions of WWI.  Illness was already rampant, nutrition was poor, the death toll and number of wounded from that war were horrendous, and world trade was completely disrupted.  I've never believed anything can be predicted based on the unique conditions pertaining during that silly endless destructive war on the youngest and healthiest populations of the leading exporting nations.  Same problem with trying to extrapolate bubonic plague from what happened during the endless Christian against Christian wars of the middle ages -- every time they burned a village, the rats moved to the next one, and sanitation was horrible in Europe at that time.  It's just very difficult to predict anything, but if experience to date is any guide, this is not a particularly lethal flu, much less so than seasonal flu.  That doesn't mean it won't get worse, but there's also no telling when a piece of a building might fall on your head.

[PlateletGal]

There was a recent article that suggested that people died not from the flu virus in 1918, but from a secondary bacterial infection (pneumonia) that resulted from the flu.

[laura1967]

That is what I read too PlateletGal!  They just didn't know what they were dealing with.

[PlateletGal]

Well well.....


Many swine flu deaths linked to pneumonia
Bacterial co-infections worsen the impact of the H1N1 virus, CDC warns


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33088461/ns/health-swine_flu

[Paxiled]

That's what pretty much always kills people who die of flu -- the flu weakens the system and the lungs, and pneumonia opportunistically sets in.  (That's what also kills most people who die after chemo and radiation, so they don't attribute the death to cancer -- makes it seem chemo and radiation work better than they do even though they killed the person).  It's not a conspiracy, that's just how flu kills, when it does kill.