USU researchers waging war with flu virus

While summer travelers are nursing concerns of contracting swine flu, Utah State University researchers are quickly working to find ways to fight it.

Although there is no way to predict when a flu outbreak will hit, USU professor Donald Smee says the potential for a full-blown flu pandemic is always not "if," but "when."

"Just because we're seeing a diminished number of swine flu cases during the summer season doesn't mean it has gone away," he said. "The flu is merely simmering at this point until it reappears in the late fall and early winter."

USU antiviral researchers have received samples of the swine or H1N1 flu virus, kept under lock and key, testing them against antiviral drug treatments that they hope will lessen the deadly effects of a possible pandemic.

Smee, an antiviral researcher and professor in USU's animal, dairy and veterinary science department, said there are a number of different strains that circulate in nature and have the potential to combine, producing new and different viruses for all life forms to combat. While humans have immunity to normal virus strains, newly combined viruses are not recognized by the immune system, therefore creating prime opportunities for the virus to spread indefinitely, resulting in a widespread illness.

So far, annual flu vaccines are the best way to gain protection from influenza, as immunizations often help prevent the spread of disease. Antiviral medications, such as the ones Smee's teams are researching at the moment, help to treat the flu by easing its symptoms, making them less severe.

USU researchers participated in the development of Tamiflu, which is one such antiviral currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is again being addressed to determine its ability to fight the current swine flu virus. Smee said researchers are also looking at the drugs as stand-alone combatants, as well as how well they work when combined.

"The projection is that we will not have enough doses of flu vaccine when fall rolls around to vaccinate everybody," he said. "Antiviral medication can be a second layer of protection when flu season comes around, and we are focusing our efforts in creating and understanding how those medications can be used to lessen the effects of the flu."

Smee anticipates researchers have just a six-month window to prepare for the upcoming seasonal sickness.

"Unfortunately, viruses can change, but we do have modern technology to back us up today," he said. "We have the ability to scale up vaccines and also create these new antiviral treatments used to attenuate the effect of the viral spread."

USU's antiviral research program dates back to 1977, and since 1985 has received $46 million in federal funding to study viruses of military concern, influenza, RSV, hepatitis, SARS, yellow fever and encephalitis viruses, many of which have annual outbreaks. The research is being done in partnership with the Navy and a pharmaceutical company focused on antiviral treatments.

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