by Marina Stein

Created on: May 05, 2009   Last Updated: May 11, 2009

In order to better understand differences between the two, let's look first at what happened in 1976. A nineteen year old soldier at Fort Dix, NJ complained of flu-like symptoms and later died. Others (about 200) became sick with flu which was caused by the swine virus. The outbreak was confined to Fort Dix and there were no more deaths other than the first infected soldier. Nobody knows how the virus was introduced to Fort Dix and why it disappeared.

Reaction of health professionals (especially, CDC) and President Ford to that outbreak, was to vaccinate every American (about 220 millions). Unfortunately, inferior quality of vaccine caused more trouble than the flu itself. After about 40 million people were vaccinated, it became clear that the vaccine was causing serious side effects (Guillain-Barre syndrome). As a result of the vaccination, 25 people died and more then 500 became sick. The head of CDC resigned.

Those decisions were dictated at the moment because the flu pandemic of 1918-1919 ("Spanish" flu), which killed about 50 million people worldwide, was still very well remembered. Authorities were afraid and on the verge of panic, that the outbreak at Fort Dix could start another pandemic and were trying to protect Americans, although politics played a role in President's Ford decision as well.

In 2009, the flu outbreak started in Mexico at the beginning of April and in three weeks, it was spreading over the world. By the beginning of May, twenty-one countries had cases of the same flu caused by new mutated virus containing parts of swine, avian and human flu (A/H1N1). Twenty-six people died as a result of that flu.

The development of a vaccine is supposed to start in the middle of May, however, the vaccination will not be available until fall. Since the virus may still mutate to a more virulent form and come back in the second wave, vaccination can become a viable option later. At the present time, the CDC and WHO are watching the situation carefully, making updates available for public on their websites daily.

The main difference between those two outbreaks is the scale of the infection spread. In 1976, the flu was contained to Fort Dix, NJ. In 2009, it became an outbreak level 5, one level before pandemic. This difference makes it difficult to compare the outbreak itself but reaction of authorities can still be evaluated.

The present situation is handled with much less panic than in 1976, though worldwide involvement makes it more difficult to make correct decisions, from a medical point of view as well as from political one.

Another difference is the much more advanced medical science and technology today. There are two anti-viral drugs which help in the fight against the disease. The structural analysis of the virus was made very fast (at the end of April), with the help of the library of gene sequences available to the world through GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data), which was founded in 2006 and allows free access for anybody.

With all the differences between the outbreaks in 1976 and in 2009, one main lesson was well learned: it is important to stay calm and not to make decisions out of panic, either at the government level or at a personal one.

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