THIS week the southern hemisphere reports that pandemic swine flu is outcompeting the previous seasonal viruses as the region endures its winter flu season (see “Swine flu steps up a few gears”). This should come as a surprise to no one: it’s what flu pandemics usually do. They also tend to get worse – often a lot worse.
So what should that tell us? Well for one thing, the vaccine that companies are churning out, designed to combat last year’s influenza virus, could well be useless. Secondly, a new vaccine against H1N1 swine flu will now come too late and…
