Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Rapid onset of symptoms and Death

There was recently a discussion on the Rhizalabs Flutracker message board about the recent (as of mid-June) spate of rapid deaths in young, healthy people. I posted an explanation of why viral pneumonia from influenza seems to cause rapid onset of illness and death (often less than 24 hours) versus more "normal" bacterial pneumonia triggered deaths. This was apparently a well-received explanation as it was requested I repost it periodically. I am posting it here so I can have easy access to it. Note there may be some finer technical details that are off, but I believe this is largely good enough for the layman.

From various things I have read it seems the immune system treats a viral infection of the lungs much differently than it does a bacterial infection. Normally, your immune system has to fight off bacteria by having certain types of immune cells eat (phagocytose?) the organism. This can be done without the the extremely lethal parts of the immune system.

But a virus enters the cell and hijacks the internal mechanisms in order to make more virions. The body must kill parts of itself, either by triggering the infected cell to die (apoptosis?) or outright killing it. Whena virus infects the lungs the body has to mount an attack with essentially its full arsenal. This leads to a cascade that can result in, as I understand it, the spongy material of the lungs being transformed into scar tissue.

The progression is viral pneumonia -> cytokine storm -> ARDS -> (multiple organ failure?) The cytokine storm is a result of the viral pneumonia and ARDS and multiple organ failure are the consequences of the cytokine storm. This all happens very quickly.

Bacterial pneumonia takes advantage of the weakness in the body generated by the viral infection, and typically takes longer to develop. This is the cycle of being sick, getting better, then taking a turn for the worse.

2 comments:

  1. can a infected person survive for three months of swine flu and get bacterial pneumonia

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank you and whre can i see the answer

    ReplyDelete