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City team to study link between virus, smoking

By: Jen Skerritt

Posted: 11/27/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

WINNIPEG researchers will test to see whether smokers or children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of falling severely ill from H1N1.Dr. Sat Sharma, director of respiratory labs at St. Boniface General Hospital, said smoking is one potential H1N1 risk factor that hasn't been studied, and may give researchers another clue as to why H1N1 causes severe illness in some and relatively mild sickness in others.

Sharma is part of a team of local researchers who recently received a federal grant to study how H1N1 attacks the body differently than seasonal influenza. While scientists know that certain risk factors, among them pregnancy and aboriginal ancestry, put people at a higher risk of severe illness from H1N1, they still do not know why.

Sharma said researchers will analyze cells from the blood and lungs of Manitobans hospitalized with severe H1N1 along with samples from people who experienced a mild bout of flu in the first or second flu wave.

The tests could allow scientists to tease out what protects some people against severe H1N1 and predisposes others to it.

"(Smoking) appears to be one factor not identified previously," Sharma said. "We'll be looking at that in a lot more detail."

The study began Oct. 1 and is part of a cross-country research project to learn more about how H1N1 attacks the lungs. Winnipeg scientists are collaborating with researchers in Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax to investigate how the virus works, along with what role genetics and environment play in how it infects the body.

Sharma and a group of Winnipeg researchers are leading the national effort, in part because of the large number of severe H1N1 cases that surfaced across the province earlier this spring. The clusters of severe H1N1 cases among Manitoba First Nations caught the attention of the World Health Organization, and at its peak, 38 Manitobans were on ventilators in intensive care and seven people died.

So far, more than 1,200 confirmed cases have been reported in the second wave and two people died. As of Wednesday, four adults with severe H1N1 were hospitalized in city intensive care units, including two who were on ventilators.

Dr. Beni Sahai, senior scientist and virologist at Cadham Provincial Laboratory in Winnipeg, said it's crucial to learn more about the virus since H1N1 is quickly becoming the dominant flu strain. Old strains of influenza die off as new ones emerge, Sahai said, and H1N1 will soon replace the previous seasonal influenza strain.

While seasonal influenza is typically confined to the upper respiratory tract, Sahai said H1N1 progresses to the lower respiratory tract in the lungs and causes serious problems. Sahai said researchers need to understand why that is in order to figure out how to stop the progression of severe disease.

Scientists plan to follow patients for a year or longer to examine the long-term effects of H1N1 on the body.

"This one is here for good," Sahai said. "The previous seasonal flu virus is rapidly being replaced by this virus."

So far, 12 H1N1 patients are enrolled in the Winnipeg study, including eight people who fell severely ill.

Anyone who has fallen ill with a mild case of H1N1 who would like to be a part of the study can phone 235-3581.

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 27, 2009 A4

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