Tourament of Pandemics - Influenza vs Hepatitis

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-03-29 10:17:00 UTC
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(photo credit: Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer)

This is the first pairing in round three of the tournament of pandemics, featuring two heavyweights - influenza and hepatitis. Influenza has now taken down both Ebola and leptospirosis. It's got global reach, the ability to rapidly mutate, a history of going pandemic, and no cure or virus that's consistently effective. It can give you a fever and a headache, or it can make you bleed from your eyes. (Yes, I know I've mentioned the eye bleeding before, but you've got to admit it's really very horrifying.) Hepatitis beat out dengue fever and meningitis, on the strength of prevalence, rapid spread, and tendency to cause liver cancer.

How do they stack up against each other? It's tricky. They're very different diseases. Hepatitis is chronic, infecting people over and over again. It spreads through blood and bodily fluids. It's particularly likely to spread in hospitals and clinics. If you get influenza, on the other hand, it either kills you or you make a full recovery. It spreads person-to-person, and through the air. You can get it in a medical facility, but you can get it just about anywhere.

Both diseases have vaccines. There are vaccines for some of the types of hepatitis virus, effective vaccines. There are vaccines for the flu, too, but the virus mutates so fast that it has to be re-designed annually.

The Winner

Our winner is influenza. Hepatitis is a tough competitor, but it can be pushed back with vaccination and good infection control. Flu spreads through the air, and it's got plenty of animal reservoirs. We've seen it mutate into some truly terrifying forms. Influenza could get worse, fast. Hepatitis has already shown us its worst; influenza has plenty more horror in reserve.

Alanna Shaikh
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