RIH: H1N1 differs from other viruses

PROVIDENCE – Two Rhode Island Hospital physicians have identified key ways in which the H1N1 (“swine flu”) virus differs from other viruses that cause respiratory illness, including a higher mortality rate, and they are recommending that patients who contract it get special treatment.
Dr. Phil Chan, an infectious diseases fellow at Rhode Island Hospital, presented the findings on Friday at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Chan studied the signs, symptoms and laboratory findings of 668 adult and pediatric patients who were treated at Rhode Island Hospital or The Miriam Hospital between October and December 2009 with a confirmed viral infection.
The goal was to determine how infections with H1N1, also known as the 2009/2010 “Influenza A,” might be different in terms of symptoms and severity.
Chan found that H1N1 patients were more likely to have a fever, cough, sore throat, nausea or vomiting; they also had a lower mean white blood-cell count.
“Perhaps more striking is that patients with the novel Influenza A virus may have higher mortality rates compared to other respiratory viruses in the patients studied,” said Dr. Leonard Mermel, medical director of epidemiology and infection control at Rhode Island Hospital and professor of medicine at Brown University, who co-authored the study.
Based on the findings, and also on available data from other researchers, Mermel added, he and Chan are recommending that high-risk patients infected with H1N1 receive “expedient” antiviral therapy.

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