Pandemic H1N1 2009 (‘swine flu’): diagnostic and other challenges

Abstract

Pandemic H1N1 2009 (‘swine flu’) virus was ‘the virus of the year 2009’ because it affected the lives of many people in this year. H1N1 was first described in California in April 2009 and spread very rapidly all over the globe. The fast global penetration of the swine flu caused the WHO in Geneva to call the infection with H1N1 a new pandemic with a rapid escalation of the different pandemic phases that ended on 11 June 2009, with the declaration of phase 6 (full-blown pandemic). This had far-reaching consequences for the local health authorities in the different affected countries and created awareness in the public and fear in the experts and even more so in many lay people. The consequences were: setting up reliable diagnostic tests as soon as possible; enhanced production, distribution and stock creation of the few drugs that were available to treat newly infected persons; and development, production, distribution and stock creation of new and appropriate anti-H1N1 swine flu vaccines. This all resulted in enormous costs in the local healthcare systems and also required smart and diligent logistics, because demand for all this was, in most cases, much higher than availability. Fortunately, the pandemic ended quite quickly (there was no ‘second wave’ as had been anticipated by some experts) and the death toll was moderate, compared with other influenza pandemic in the past and even to the regular annual appearance of the seasonal flu. This favorable outcome, however, provoked some harsh criticism that the WHO and healthcare systems in general had over-reacted and by doing so, a lot of money was thrown out of the window. This article describes the history of the H1N1 pandemic, the diagnostic challenges and resolutions, touches on treatment and vaccination very briefly and also comments on the criticism and arguments that came up immediately at the end and following the termination of the pandemic situation.

Keywords::

• diagnosis
• lessons learnt
• pandemic
• pandemic H1N1 2009
• prophylaxis (vaccination)
• swine flu
• treatment

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author is employed by Roche Diagnostics (Switzerland) AG. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.