警惕!H1N1病毒可能导致肺炎

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Now from the Boston Museum of Science, Sci-tech Today, on NECN.

4,500 people worldwide have died from swine flu since March of this year. It's just a fraction of those who have contracted the virus. But health experts are trying to figure out why some people don't survive it. In Sci-tech Today, we find out the answer may lie with the lunges. And joining us now from Museum of Science Boston is Brindha Muniappan. Thanks so much Brindha for joining us.

Thanks Caroine

And Brindha, why is H1N1 so deadly?

Well, it is a type of the influenza virus, much like the flu viruses we see in the winter, our normal flu season. But the normal flu, the seasonal flu virus typically affects people who don't have very strong immune systems, like the elderly, or the very young, or even the pregnant women. But the H1N1 type A influenza virus, also known as the swine flu virus has been very devastating to people who’re normally healthy with strong immune systems including teenagers and young adults.

And so researchers have found that there is some connection to the lung--a lack of oxygen?

Yeah, so there are 3 new studies that were published in the "Journal of American Medical Association". And the researchers in these studies took a look at hospital records in Mexico, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And they took a look at hospital records of people who had been admitted to the intensive care units, so people who are critically ill, who have come down with the H1N1 virus and tried to figure out if there was, commonalities, certain characteristics that were similar to these patients. And they did find that a large majority of these patients were lacking in oxygen in their bodies. So they weren't getting enough oxygen to their lungs and into their bloodstream.

So how, Brindha then, dose this change the way that people are treated?

Well, this is hopefully going to provide a lot of information and help to physicians to treat people who come down with severe cases of H1N1. Possibly by letting physicians know, well, you know, if we have a critically ill patient with this disease, we need to probably, administrate extra oxygen more than likely the patient is going to have to go on a mechanical ventilator, a machine to add oxygen to their body. Physicians are going to have to pay close attention to the patient, probably administer anti-virus medications and maybe even you know, monitor the patient  and watch out for secondary infections that could be caused other organisms, other viruses, but maybe even bacteria. So they’ll also have to watch out and possibly provide antibiotics as well. But for all these patients in these 3 studies that were taken a look at. All of those patients just about all required an extensive amount of time in the intensive care units once they had come down with the severe case of H1N1.

All right, Brindha Muniappen, thank you so much for joining us.

You’re welcome, Calrine.

And you can join in us every Thursday morning at this time for Sci-tech Today or log on to the Museum of Science website mos.org.