Letâ??s take the bad news first.
A new report released today by the journal Nature finds that the new H1N1 flu has quite a talent for making its way deep into the lungs. Once there, the so-called swine flu churns out copies of itself, producing symptoms such as bronchitis, alveolitis and pneumonia.
H1N1_flu_virus_09_sThe researchers, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Tokyo, infected mice, ferrets, monkeys and pigs with four variants of H1N1, along with a version of the seasonal flu for comparison. Unlike the pandemic strains, the seasonal flu did most of its damage in the upper respiratory tract.