A2-Hong Kong-68, or Whatever

A plague was moving across the U.S. last week. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were sniffling, hacking, running low fevers and complaining that their bones ached. The vast majority of adults said they had "the flu," and many tried to show their medical sophistication by identifying it as "Hong Kong flu."

In most cases, the precise identity of the affliction and the microbe causing it was unknown. Cautious doctors described their patients' illnesses simply as "URD" or "URI" (for upper respiratory disease, or upper respiratory infection) and let it go at that. Whatever its nature, the illness was emptying schools and offices, stripping military installations of active-duty personnel, and decimating Broadway casts. Jane Morgan in the title role and eight other players in Mame had to yield their places to understudies. The cast of George Ml had five out. Playing the barber in Man of La Mancha, Leo Blum became so ill that he fell off the stage, and since his understudy was ill, the stage manager had to pinch-hit. At the Metropolitan Opera, John Alexander had to give up after two acts of La Sonnambula. And in Philharmonic Hall, Pianist Jose Echaniz could not even make it past intermission.

Out of China. The experience of other large cities was spotty. In Los Angeles, 15 members of the Rams' 40-man football squad gave up practice because of the flu. In Denver, the Hong Kong virus was blamed for a significant increase in the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia. Chicago and Detroit were holding their breaths.

Health officials and their laboratory experts, using ultrarefined microtechniques, began closing in on the culprit microbes. No doubt many of the illnesses were caused by assorted viruses that have no common names and produce indistinguishable illnesses. But it was almost certain that most of the symptoms resulted from the epidemic spread of influenza viruses. Of these, there are two main types, A and B. The B type appears to be stable and causes outbreaks of moderate severity every two to four years. On the other hand the A types are highly unstable and mutate unpredictably.

The best-documented mutation occurred in 1957, when a new and savage strain poured out of northern China and won deserved ill repute as "Asian A2." Whenever a virus mutates, pharmaceutical manufacturers have to in corporate the new strain into their vaccines because antibodies and therefore immunity against older strains are not as effective in combatting the successive mutants. That takes many months at best, and the makers lost the race to the virus in the winter of 1957-58.

Last July, another mutation erupted from China through Hong Kong and has been tagged A2-Hong Kong-68. This time the vaccine makers were able to work faster. In mid-November they announced Government approval and first shipments of a new, anti-Hong-Kong-flu vaccine, harvested from viruses grown in eggs, inactivated, then tested for potency and safety.

Plenty of Fluids. But by that time, Needles, a tiny California desert town on the edge of the Dead Mountains, had suffered the first confirmed mainland outbreak of Hong Kong flu, which struck some 500 people after travelers and servicemen on leave returned home from the Pacific. Since then, Hong Kong cases have been confirmed in Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina. Hardest hit was Puer to Rico, with almost 55,000 cases in an epidemic that reached its peak in late October. The heaviest mortality rate was that of Riverview, Philadelphia's home for the indigent, where 266 inmates were stricken and nine died.

Because influenza is seldom fatal for a person who is in generally good health before he catches it, some authorities have described Hong Kong flu as a "mild illness." That is highly misleading. All types of influenza virus are about equal in their ability to cause severe illness. What varies enormously--and with it, the ultimate severity of the disease--is the individual victim's constitution and resistance. Some otherwise healthy people are especially susceptible to disabling illness that lasts several weeks. Others can throw off the flu after a week or so, with perhaps half that time spent in bed on a high fluid intake. No medication does much good, except aspirin to ease the discomfort and help lower the fever.

Winter of the Flu. Ailing youngsters and oldsters run a considerably greater risk that the infection will move down from the upper respiratory tract (mouth, nose, throat and windpipe) to the lungs, causing a form of viral pneumonia, or that the viral infection will make the lungs prey to bacterial pneumonia. For this last complication, antibiotics are prescribed--sometimes in advance, in the hope of preventing it.

Aside from vaccination, the only prophylactic against any strain of Asian flu is amantadine, a drug marketed by Du Pont as Symmetrel. It is given to the elderly and infirm after one member of the household has come down with flu but before they develop it themselves. It is ineffective after illness has begun, and many physicians question whether its safety for those of all ages and sexes has been sufficiently proved. No matter how widely the new vaccine is distributed or how fast it is used, this is going to be the winter of the flu. And Hong Kong flu, at that.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.