# 4012
Revere at Effect Measure today looks at some recent reports that suggest that when the common cold (Rhinovirus) is circulating it might reduce the spread of the influenza virus.
The idea made headlines a couple of days ago, and was covered in The New Scientist by Debora MacKenzie.
Common cold may hold off swine flu
- 12 November 2009 by Debora MacKenzie
A VIRUS that causes the common cold may be saving people from swine flu. If this intriguing idea turns out to be true, it would explain why swine flu's autumn wave has been slow to take off in some countries and point to new ways to fight flu.
"It is really surprising that there has not been more pandemic flu activity in many European countries," says Arnold Monto, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
It is really surprising that there has not been more pandemic flu activity in many European countries.
In France, flu cases rose in early September, then stayed at about 160 per 100,000 people until late October, when numbers started rising again. The delayed rise was puzzling, says Jean-Sebastien Casalegno of the French national flu lab at the University of Lyon.
Read Revere’s take in:
The common cold and influenza
