Swine Flu Vaccine Distribution

In this article by the AP, it talks about how if swine flu occurs in one of the people in a close-knit community, it runs a very high possibility to affect others. There is an interesting observation about the social optimum of vaccine distribution. Very soon, the southern hemisphere will be undergoing its flu season, and swine flu may become more prominent and evolved. If the more prosperous nations in the northern hemisphere help manufacture and distribute the vaccine to the poorer southern countries (social optimum), then the overall impact of the swine flu is less than if they hoarded the vaccines for their own citizens (Nash).

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gTu8DA_vDDu9gN6T8l66QWMGvqqwD983HCV00

In response to the vaccination of the swine flu its also important to take into accoutn the rate at which swine flu may spread and therefore infect the networks of the world. With a vaccination in place it might be useful to know which regions may be infected quicker than the others etc.

it is in that respect that this research by Professor Dirk Brockmann which uses networks and complex systems to analyze the rate at which swine flu will spread across the countries

http://rocs.northwestern.edu/projects/swine_flu/

It could be helpful to overlay a community's network of people with multiple factors, such as degree of interaction, climate, and age, to plan interventions in the case of disease outbreaks. If the variables are set for a community during flu season, perhaps vaccine distribution could be planned by targeting clusters of nodes to achieve maximal impact.

Although the spread of swine flu is person-to-person, it is clear by this map (http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/images/maps/h1n1confirmedcases_051009.jpg) that the virus is not the most prevalent in the states where the population is the greatest. Rather, the most cases are in Illinois (which coincidentally has one of the busiest airports, O'Hare being a "hub" airport). So, if we were to spread a vaccine, we should distribute the vaccine in places where there is the most human interaction from people of diverse backgrounds. This means airports, sports stadiums, etc. I think it would be most effective to minimize these "weak links" in a network because as we learned in class, this would slow the spread of the disease drastically.

The fact that the swine flu might jump the the southern hemisphere is very important. The regular flu is actually seasonal which means for some reason it peaks being during the winter and near non-existent during the summer. However, when it starts to get hotter during the Spring in the northern hemisphere, it will jump to the south hemisphere where it is Fall and is getting colder. Because it takes about 6 months to develop the flu vaccination and of limited resources, Health officials have to predict which strain of seasonal flu will be the one to spread the most that year and develop only the vaccination for that strain. Therefore in North America, they spend a lot of time and money watching the flu in the other parts of the world to see what strain is becoming prominent else where and start developing vaccinations to that strain so winter comes around they have the vaccinations ready.

The Spanish Flu in 1918 started off very similar to the Swine Flu in the fact that it started March and got big in April and then started to die off in the summer. Then Fall came around and a second wave hit, this time with a more deadly virus than the first and even more people were killed (and this time most were healthy people).

I think the importance of the southern hemisphere is that it means the flu never dies out during the hot months. In terms of the flu, the north and south hemisphere act almost as two separate social network systems with links to each other only during certain month of the year when they switch off which off which is cold and which is hot. Not only does it keep the flu alive but it also means different flues develop due to the separation of the networks for a certain amount of time. Health officials have to develop two separate seasonal flu vaccines for each hemisphere because of this. In terms of the Swine Flu, an CBS article said that "there’s also a chance that the two flus could collide and mutate into a new strain that is more contagious and dangerous."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30562405/