Well, there is no softy evolutionary ecology. Evolution built the ecossystems. Species not only evolve, but CO-evolve. Co-evolution is the key for understand why the ecossystems are efficient.

“A lot more information about how this all works has been coming out today, and it does seem to not be quite so exceptionally unusual a virus as initial reporting had made it sound. I am of course familiar with viruses swapping genes, but it just seemed a bit weird it had bits from several different swine flus from different continents. Perhaps we need new international laws on the movement of livestock.”

Maybe international laws on the movement of livestock will not be effective. Wild animals move. Wild birds cross continents and oceans, they have migration. So, bird flu is crossing the globe now, migrating birds are spreading it from Asia to Europe, from Europe to North America, from North america to South America. And wild birds will infect poultry. The solution is vacinate poultry against bird flu, frequently, so poultry will not get it from wild birds. Some countries will do it. Other countries have no money for that.

And from poultry, the virus can move to swine. They live at the same farms. And swine populations have human and swine virus. So, the virus can trade genes at the swine population.

“Seems it’s still spreading pretty fast, with suspected cases in Spain and Scotland now, but outside of Mexico it does not seem to be particularly virulent. Time will tell, I guess.”

Diferent from 1917, the human population is urban and not rural and we move using airplanes and not ships. The spread will be faster than the Spanish flu.

However, today we have WHO and we understand better how virus spread. We can be lucky and not have a pandemic. But only if the governments make their homerwork.

And USA don’t made yours….

A lot more information about how this all works has been coming out today, and it does seem to not be quite so exceptionally unusual a virus as initial reporting had made it sound. I am of course familiar with viruses swapping genes, but it just seemed a bit weird it had bits from several different swine flus from different continents. Perhaps we need new international laws on the movement of livestock.

Seems it’s still spreading pretty fast, with suspected cases in Spain and Scotland now, but outside of Mexico it does not seem to be particularly virulent. Time will tell, I guess.

“Some thoughts: How common is it for a virus to manage to gather genes from swine flu, avian flu, and human flu before it gets noticed? I would have thought it would have been causing problems when it combined just two of those. Has this happened before?”

Yes, this happened before. It was the Spanish Flu. It was a combination of genes from human, swine and avian flu.

Virus are alive. They reproduce. They have mutations. And they RECOMBINE their genes. Well, we too recombine our genes, we call it sex.

When two strains of virus share the same host, they will recombine, trade genes. Possibly, create a stronger virus. Good for the virus, the virus will reproduce more, it is natural selection on works, Evolution is a fact of life. Bad for the host.

Virus evolve. Maybe be the better weapon we have against them. A virus that kill the host is not a virus will spread a lot. A virus that NOT kill the host will have more chance to spread to other hosts. So, maybe that explain why there are less deaths at US. We can be lucky and the virus is evolving to a less lethal strain. That happens to any epidemic, the germ will evolve to a less lethal form. It is a common knowledge between the epidemiologists.

No one is REALLY looking how these virus evolve at the swine and avian population. Some researchs look into, the WHO make a few efforts for look into, but there is no effort for control it. The scientists are starting to look how these virus evolve at the animal populations, so the picture is incomplete. And you can note it is easier to research the farm animals than the wild animals. The picture for the wild animals is almost empty.

And for the farm animals at the third world countries, where the human health is precarious and there is no money for almost everything, you can be sure that the control is non existent. Only major outbreaks of poultry and swine epidemics will be noted, if that.