There's a little pig in each of us

That's genetically speaking. A new paper just posted on Nature indicates we must monitor pig populations to track the evolution of influenza virus. So far the current swine flu pandemic is underwhelming but the next one.... Here's the title and the multiple authors: "Origins and evolutionary genomics of the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 influenza A epidemic" By Gavin J. D. Smith, Dhanasekaran Vijaykrishna, Justin Bahl, Samantha J. Lycett, Michael Worobey, Oliver G. Pybus, Siu Kit Ma, Chung Lam Cheung, Jayna Raghwani, Samir Bhatt, J. S. Malik Peiris, Yi Guan, Andrew Rambaut. Of the virus they write, "We show that it was derived from several viruses circulating in swine, and that the initial transmission to humans occurred several months before recognition of the outbreak." Their report has some nifty charts showing the virus evolution. Check it out. Question: is there some way to use computer models and regular testing to track the viral evolution of H1N1? Can we get organized, or will we simply wait for the next circuitous return and outbreak and then react? Technology could be applied.

Meanwhile the current version of swine flu has hit 30,000 people worldwide, killing a tiny fraction of those. The U.S. is world leader with nearly half the reported cases. Thge flu spreads from person to person and is most dangerous to young people. It does not come from pork.