# 3575
Dr. Andrew Jeremijenko is an epidemiologist who worked several years ago for NAMRU-2 (Naval Medical Research Unit) in Jakarta, Indonesia. He now is an entrepreneur in the Tele-medicine field, with his company TeleDr, a physician consultation service using Internet, and other, communications mediums.
Dr. Jeremijenko has been frequently interviewed, and widely quoted over the years, on Indonesia’s bird flu woes.
On Saturday he was interviewed regarding his concerns over the herd of pigs in Australia found to have been infected with the novel H1N1 virus.
Mutation fears as pigs catch swine flu
By Simon Santow for AM
Updated Sat Aug 1, 2009 1:15pm AEST
One expert says there is a very real risk the swine flu virus will become more dangerous to humans in the wake of a swine flu outbreak in a New South Wales piggery.
The piggery in central-western NSW has been placed in quarantine after some of the 2,000 pigs there were found to have swine flu.
It is the first time that Australian pigs have been infected by the virus.
Dr Andrew Jeremijenko, an epidemiologist, says the there is a risk the virus will now gain strength and mutate.
"The alarm bells that concern me most is that in pigs, the disease that can transmit between humans and pigs, in the pig population it could mutate a little bit and come back slightly different to humans," he said.
"One of the concerns is that the virus could mutate, so that the medicines that we have don't work against it. Another concern is that it could mix with another virus like the bird flu virus.
Tomorrow an emergency meeting will be held in Australia to discuss new biosecurity rules for swine operations. Taking a different stance, New South Wales Chief Veterinary Officer, Ian Roth, in the article below urges people not to worry about the potential for mutation.
Emergency plan to tackle piggery swine flu
An emergency plan to tackle an outbreak of swine flu in a piggery in central western New South Wales will be discussed at a meeting today.
Up to 2,000 pigs at the farm in Dunedoo have caught swine flu, probably from farm workers.
<SNIP>
Ian Roth says that the infected pigs are quarantined, recovering well and are unlikely to be killed because of the outbreak.
He also says people should not be worried about the virus mutating and being passed back to humans.
The mutational process that Dr. Jeremijenko is concerned over occurs when a host is infected with two different flu strains simultaneously.
If both strains infect the same cell, they can swap genetic material, and create a hybrid.
Pigs, since they are so susceptible to influenza (human, swine, and bird strains), are thought to make excellent `mixing vessels’ for flu reassortment.
When this happens it is called antigenic shift.
While we know that this process happens, we don’t really know how likely it is to happen. Obviously if it happened a lot, we’d be hip deep in new flu viruses all the time.
All of this reinforces the need for better bio-surveillance of of pig operations, and better bio-security rules as well.
While the odds of a mutation emerging out of any given herd is probably very small, the more herds that become infected, the better the chances are that a reassortment could occur.
While the risks may seem small, as any virologist will tell you: Shift happens.
