Gloria’s 9th: Boastful, apologetic – or both

Today President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will deliver her valedictory State of the Nation Address (SONA). The act is the highest level of public accountability for the president that is mandated in the Philippine Constitution – for the country’s chief executive to report to Congress, the bureaucracy, and the Filipino people on the state of the nation.
The question is which Arroyo will show up to deliver the SONA: A boastful, triumphant Arroyo, who will take credit for the Philippine economy’s uninterrupted expansion during her watch or an apologetic Arroyo, who has caused so much pain and misery for a lot of Filipinos and has managed to damage, in varying degrees, existing democratic institutions?

Surely, she will try to take full credit for the performance of the economy during her decade-long reign. That strategy is both risky and inappropriate. Risky, since the economy after growing at its peak in 2007 is now heading south – 3.8 percent GDP growth in 2008, and is projected to slow to zero growth in 2009 and to 2.0 percent in 2010.

The economy therefore grew at an average of 4.09 percent during the 10-year period. That, however, is much less than Estrada’s performance of 4.7 percent (3.4 percent GDP growth in 1999 and 6.0 percent in 2000), and slightly better than Ramos’s average of 3.6 percent from 2003 to 2008 or Aquino’s average of 3.34 percent from 1986 to 1992.

But a comparison of economic performance on the basis of GDP numbers as the only criterion is inappropriate for a number of reasons. First, the terms of office of post-Marcos presidents are uneven. Arroyo would end up serving for 9.5 years or almost a decade, followed by Aquino (seven years), Ramos (six years), and Estrada (2.5 years). Second, the national income accounts system was revised twice during Arroyo’s watch, which means the GDP numbers in recent years may not be comparable with those in earlier years. Third, Professor Felipe Medalla of the U.P. School of Economics has raised several methodological and measurement questions on recent GDP numbers. To date, his questions have yet to be answered by government statisticians.

More importantly, though, the government cannot claim full credit for the country’s economic performance because there are factors that affect economic growth that are beyond its control. The government doesn’t control the weather, which affects agriculture immensely in monsoon Asia. A devastating El Nino or a La Nina could spell a big difference on whether agriculture output would be robust or weak.

The more open the economy, the more it is subject to the vicissitudes of the outside world.
While the rest of the world was on a rapid, sustained growth, the Philippine economy benefited through galloping overseas remittances, stronger exports, and higher foreign direct investments. This happened during Arroyo’s watch and she’s been trying to claim credit for it.
But she has nothing to do with the sustained global expansion. And with the sudden reversal of fortune, when the financial bubbles burst, and with the world economy now in a full-blown economic crisis, the Philippine economy has significantly slowed. Unfortunately for Arroyo, this also happened during her watch.
Source: Government sources; author’s own projections for 2009 and 2010

The world economic crisis exposed the long-term reforms that any Philippine president should have addressed seriously and which Arroyo failed to do: the diversification of Philippine exports, the overdependence on overseas migrant workers, the rapid population growth rate, agricultural modernization, and fiscal sustainability.

At the very least, a meaningful way of evaluating economic performance is whether a particular administration has met its own targets. The assumption is that at the time the targets were set, government authorities have enough information to know the available resources, technology, and government capability to meet the targets.

Using this performance criterion, the economy grew much less than planned levels, except for 2004 and 2007, both election years. But the ongoing economic crisis, the gap between the planned level and projected level will be much more serious during Arroyo’s final years: 2008, 2009, and 2010.
An even more important way of evaluating economic performance is whether the people’s well-being has improved. For the common man, the impact of the economy on employment, poverty alleviation, and hunger mitigation is more important than the GDP number.

Better or worse?

An appropriate question is: are Filipinos better off now than when Arroyo took power in 2001? Do they have decent, stable jobs or are they either unemployed or underemployed? Are they poorer or richer? Do they eat regularly or do they go hungry occasionally?

In her first SONA, Arroyo spoke about her “vision of winning the war against poverty within the decade." But after almost nine years, she is fast losing that war. Poverty worsened from 2003 to 2006 using official government statistics. And with high inflation and food prices in 2008 and rising joblessness, it is reasonable to expect poverty to worsen in 2009. At current expectations of slow recovery, it is highly unlikely that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by 2015 will be met, even as neighboring countries (Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia) succeed in rapidly reducing poverty.
Arroyo promised to create 10 million jobs or about 1.5 million jobs annually from 2004 to 2010. She’s way short of her target. Worse, the decent jobs in manufacturing continued to disappear while more part-time, less secure jobs were created.
On her first SONA she promised food on every table, but that also did not happen. Instead, the Philippines became the world’s number one importer of rice. And almost nine years after that first SONA, hunger incidence has reached its peak at 23.7 percent, according to a recent Social Weather Stations survey.

Unemployment, poverty, and hunger are interrelated. Survey results show that unemployment and hunger go together. This reveals the weakness of the Philippine social-protection program, which provides very little protection for those who are needy, including those who lose their jobs. The incidence of hunger is a problem that has been exacerbated by the ongoing economic crisis, and it has progressively worsened under the Arroyo administration.
Budget mismanagement

But should all these surprise us? Despite the large increases in the national budgets during the last nine years, education, health, and public infrastructure did not get the priority they deserved. From 2000 to 2009, funding for public infrastructure has been modest at less than 1.5 percent of GDP.
President Arroyo undermined existing budget institutions. The budget process should be transparent and predictable. Yet Arroyo revealed her disrespect for the constitutional process by habitually operating on reenacted budget. None of her nine regular budgets were approved on time; usually, there is a full quarter delay. In three of her nine years, she ran the government for the full year without an approved budget. She has pushed executive action to its limits by exercising the power of the purse under the shroud of secrecy.

Grading Gloria

In her earlier SONA, Arroyo tried to sum up her vision of governance using a catchy phrase, Beat the Odds (B for balanced budget; E for education for all; A for automated elections; T for transport and digital infrastructure; T for terminating NPA/MILF hostilities; H for healing the wounds of EDSA 1,2 and 3; E for electricity and water for all; O for opportunity to create 10 million jobs; D for decongest Metro Manila; and DS for develop Subic-Clark hub).

Let’s rate President Arroyo on whether she has met or likely to meet her Beat the Odds goals and objectives using the U.P. grading system: 1(Excellent), 1.25, 1.5(Very Good), 1.75, 2.0(Good), 2.25, 2.5(Satisfactory), 2.75, 3.0(Pass), 4.0(Conditional Failure), and 5.0(Fail).
Balanced budget: Arroyo incurred large national government deficits during her early years: P211 billion in 2002, P200 billion in 2003, and P147 billion in 2004. And after cutting the budget deficit to P12 billion in 2007 (aided by severe spending compression and hefty one-time privatization proceeds of P91 billion), she is expected to exit with a large deficit of P250 billion this year and another P200 plus billion deficit next year. As a result, national government public debt would more than double: from P2.2 trillion as of end 2000, it will balloon to a new high of P4.5 trillion to P4.75 trillion by end June 2010. Preliminary final grade: 5.0

Education for all: Arroyo neglected basic elementary and secondary education during her first six years. As a result, despite her catch-up plan, progress in education has been slow and uneven. Key MDG targets will surely be missed. Net enrollment ratio has worsened – from 96.8 percent in 2000 to 83.3 percent in 2006. Translation: 17 out of 100 children of school age are out school. What would these children do in the future? The Arroyo administration is in denial and confuses inputs (school buildings, textbooks, etc.) with outputs and outcomes (better test scores, higher literacy). Grade: 4.0

Automated elections: The Commission on Elections failed to do it in 2004 and 2007. There is a fair chance that the 2010 national and local elections will be automated. But the poll automation is the responsibility of a separate, independent constitutional commission. Still, it could be Arroyo’s positive contribution to the democratic process if the 2010 elections, against all odds based on her past electoral behavior, turn out to be honest, orderly, and peaceful. Grade: Incomplete. (This is work in progress.)

Transport and digital infrastructure: The government has underinvested in public infrastructure. The promised additional light rail transit systems in Metro Manila have yet to be started. The existing three systems are not even linked, though work has been started. The digital infrastructure is happening through private telecommunication firms, which suggests that there was really no need for the corruption-laden NBN-ZTE project. Grade: 3.0

Terminating NPA/MILF hostilities: Both NPA and MILF remain capable of harassing government troops. Mindanao remains to be a battleground for Muslim rebels and government armed forces, and there appears to be no end to the conflict. The probability of having peace in Mindanao is much lower now than when Arroyo assumed office in 2001. Grade: 5.0

Healing the wounds of EDSA 1, 2 and 3 forces: But the country is more divided now than in 2001. There is even a serious rift within EDSA 2 forces. Grade: 5.0

Electricity and water for all: No additional power capacity was built during Arroyo’s term. Intermittent power failures are already being experienced in parts of the Visayas and Mindanao. And a return of the power crisis is likely in 2011. It could be sooner where it not for the severe economic slowdown, which muted demand for power. Water supply in Metro Manila has improved, but that was the outcome of decisions made during the term of Ramos (no credit for Arroyo). The appointment of a politician as head of the Local Water Utilities Administration is a negative. Grade: 3.0

Opportunity to create 10 million jobs: The government’s goal is to create 1.5 million new jobs every year. But from 2005 to date, only about 600,000 jobs were created yearly, and only 430,000 jobs if unpaid family workers were excluded. Decent jobs, mostly in manufacturing, were lost. These jobs were replaced by part-time, less paying jobs in agriculture and the informal service sectors. The rising number of overseas workers is proof that all’s not well in the domestic economy, and that the government has failed to provide enough jobs for Filipinos at home. And by being the top importer of rice, we’re giving up jobs at home and creating jobs for Vietnamese and Thais. Grade: 4.0

Decongest Metro Manila: The idea is not well thought out in the light of the ongoing world economic crisis. The trend for the future is to have denser cities, where people live where they work. The growing urban centers, however, have to be connected to the lagging rural areas. Yet since the idea to relocate the Department of Agrarian Reform to Iloilo, the Department of Tourism to Cebu, and the Department of Agriculture to Davao, is senseless, the failure to implement it may not be bad after all.Grade: 3.0

Develop Subic-Clark hub: The hub was thought out by Ramos, funded under Estrada (through the Obuchi Plan), and implemented by Arroyo. It is a worthwhile project. But project implementation was delayed and financed at large cost overrun, a characteristic of many GMA projects. Grade: 2.75

Preliminary Final Grade: 3.86 or 4.0 (Conditional Failure). Arroyo’s dismal performance supports the view that the EDSA 2 political adventure was a monumental mistake. It has set back the country’s democratic process and poverty reduction programs by almost a decade. As a society and a people, we’re worse off now than when Arroyo took power in 2001 – while our Asian neighbors continue to march forward, despite the world economic crisis.

Governance scorecard

Arroyo’s failure to move the economy and the government forward on a lot of government’s goals and objective may be attributed to various aspects of governance. What was the Philippine governance rating before Arroyo took power and what is it now?
On voice and accountability, in 2000, the Philippines’ rating was 54.3-percentile rank (that is, the Philippines was better than 54.3 percent of all countries in the study). By 2008, the rating had regressed to 41.3 percent. Political assassinations, incidents of summary killings, unfavorable reports on human rights violation by UN agencies, and many attempts to muzzle the press have not helped the Arroyo administration.
On political stability, there was a sharp drop in rating: from 26.0 percentile rank in 2000 to 10.5 in 2008. The Philippines is better than only one out of 10 countries among the 212 countries and territories surveyed.

On government effectiveness, there has been an improvement from 49.3 percentile rank in 2000 to 55.0 in 2008.

On regulatory quality, there has been a regression from 56.6 percentile rank in 2000 to 51.7 in 2008.

On the rule of law, there has been a slight improvement: from a 36.7 percentile rank in 2000 to 39.7 in 2008. But, the Philippines hit rough patches during the early years of the Arroyo administration. The rule of law dipped to 36.2 percentile rank in 2002, 33.3 in 2003, and 33.8 in 2004, a reminder of the extra-constitutional way by which Arroyo was installed to power.

On control of corruption, the deterioration was quite severe: from 36.4 percentile rank in 2000 to 26.1 in 2008. The 2008 ranking was a slight improvement compared to the 22.2 ranking in 2007, when congressional investigations of high profile allegations of corruption such as the NBN-ZTE and fertilizer scams were at their peak.

During Arroyo’s watch, there has been a serious deterioration in four of six aspects of governance. The governance ratings are not just numbers, unfortunately. Better governance, according to the World Bank study, strengthens development, and not the other way around.
Poor governance has an impact on how poorly the Philippines fared in its fight against poverty and its desire to improve the living standards of Filipinos.

Lost decade

The state of economic affairs is one where people’s welfare has been set back for about a decade. More people and families are poorer now than when Arroyo assumed power in 2001. More workers are jobless and underemployed now than before. And more people are likely to go hungry now than a decade ago.


As a result, people are dissatisfied with Arroyo as shown by her negative net satisfaction rating during the second half of her decade-long term. She has the worst net satisfaction rating among all post-Marcos presidents.

Ten years after, government finances are on shakier ground. Taxes-to-GDP ratio is much lower, going back to levels seen in the Marcos years, and national public debt would have more than doubled. In 2000, every Filipino had a debt burden of P25,991. By July 1, 2010, the amount is expected to double to P50,492. Under an unchanged condition, with the huge chunk of the national budget going to debt service, Arroyo’s successor can do very little to improve the people’s welfare.

As President Arroyo exits Malacanang, she will transmit to her successor a nation that is on the brink of financial collapse, hardly able to fund any program that would feed, educate, and take care of the health needs of its people.

What is Dementia? What Causes Dementia? Symptoms of Dementia

The word dementia comes from the Latin de meaning "apart" and mens from the genitive mentis meaning "mind". Dementia is the progressive deterioration in cognitive function - the ability to process thought (intelligence). Progressive means the symptoms will gradually get worse. The deterioration is more than might be expected from normal aging and is due to damage or disease. Damage could be due to a stroke, while an example of a disease might be Alzheimer's.
Dementia is a set of signs and symptoms
Dementia is a non-specific syndrome in which affected areas of brain function may be affected, such as memory, language, problem solving and attention. Dementia, unlike Alzheimer's, is not a disease in itself. When dementia appears the higher mental functions of the patient are involved initially. Eventually, in the later stages, the person may not know what day of the week, month or year it is, he may not know where he is, and might not be able to identify the people around him.

Dementia is significantly more common among elderly people. However, it can affect adults of any age.
What are the symptoms of dementia?

* Memory loss - the patient may forget his way back home from the shops. He may forget names and places. He may find it hard to remember what happened earlier on during the day.

* Moodiness - the patient may become more and more moody as parts of the brain that control emotion become damaged. Moods may also be affected by fear and anxiety - the patient is frightened about what is happening to him.

* Communicative difficulties - the affected person finds it harder to talk read and/or write.

As the dementia progresses, the patient's ability to carry out everyday tasks diminishes and he may not be able to look after himself.
Diseases that cause dementia

brain neurones
* Alzheimer's disease - This is by far the most common cause of dementia. The chemistry and structure of the brain of a person with Alzheimer's disease changes and his brain cells die prematurely.

* Stroke (Vascular problems) - this means problems with blood vessels (veins and arteries). Our brain needs a good supply of oxygen-rich blood. If this supply is undermined in any way our brain cells could die - causing symptoms of vascular dementia. Symptoms may appear suddenly, or gradually. A major stroke will cause symptoms to appear suddenly while a series of mini strokes will not.

* Dementia with Lewy bodies - spherical structures develop inside nerve cells. Brain cells are nerve cells; they form part of our nervous system. These spherical structures in the brain damage brain tissue. The patient's memory, concentration and ability to speak are affected. Dementia with Lewy bodies is sometimes mistaken for Parkinson's disease because the symptoms are fairly similar.

* Fronto-temporal dementia - this includes Pick's disease. The front part of the brain is damaged. The patient's behavior and personality are affected first, later his memory changes.

* Other diseases - progressive supranuclear palsy, Korsakoff's syndrome, Binswanger's disease, HIV and AIDS, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Dementia is also more common among patients who suffer from Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Motor Neurone disease and Multiple Sclerosis. People who suffer from AIDS sometimes go on to develop cognitive impairment.

There are two main categories of dementia
According to most experts, there are two main categories of dementia - cortical and subcortical dementias.

* Cortical Dementia - The cerebral cortex is affected. This is the outer layer of the brain. The cerebral cortex is vital for cognitive processes, such as language and memory. Alzheimer's disease is a form of cortical dementia, as is CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease).

* Subcortical Dementia - A part of the brain beneath the cortex (deeper inside) becomes affected or damaged. Language and memory are not usually affected. A patient with subcortical dementia will usually experience changes in his personality, his thinking may slow down, and his attention span may be shortened. Dementias which sometimes result from Parkinson's disease are subcortical dementias, as are those caused by AIDS and Huntington's disease.

A patient with multi-infarct dementia will have both the cortical and subcortical parts of the brain affected or damaged.
Diagnosis of dementia
Although there are some brief tests, a more reliable diagnosis needs to be carried out by a specialist, such as a geriatric internist, geriatric psychiatrist, neurologist, neuropsychologist or geropsychologist.

The following tests are commonly used:

* AMTS (Abbreviated Mental Test Score) A score lower than six out of ten suggests a need for further evaluation.
* MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination) A score lower than twenty-four out of thirty suggests a need for further evaluation)
* 3MS (Modified Mini-Mental State Examination)
* CASI (Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument)

It is important that the patient's score is interpreted in context with his socio-economic, educational and cultural background. The tester must also factor in the patient's present physical and mental state - does the patient suffer from depression, is he in great pain?

What is the treatment for dementia?
In the majority of cases dementia is incurable. Researchers are making inroads into treatments that may slow down dementia's progress. Cholinestaerase inhibitors are frequently administered during the early stages. Cognitive and behavioral therapies may also be useful. Several studies have found that music therapy helps patients with dementia. It is important to remember that the patient's caregiver also needs training and emotional support.

In the USA, Tacrine (Cognex), donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Razadyne), and rivastigmine (Exelon) have been approved for the treatment of dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease - some physicians prescribe these drugs for vascular dementia as well. Selegiline, which is used for treating Parkinson's disease, has been found to slow down the progress of dementia.

In Canada, a country where two languages are spoken, English and French, researchers found that bilingual people who develop dementia do so four years later than monolingual people who develop dementia. The four year difference prevails even after factoring for such variables as cultural differences, education, employment, gender and immigration.
How common is dementia?

* United Kingdom - According to a report by the Alzheimer's Society (UK), approximately 700,000 people in the United Kingdom have dementia, out of a total population of about 61 million. Your chances of having dementia are 1 in 100 during your late 60s, this rises to 6 in 100 in your late 70s, and 20 in 100 in your late 80s. As people live longer experts predict dementia will rise significantly. According to predictions, there will be 940,000 people with dementia in the United Kingdom by 2021.

* Worldwide - According to a study published in The Lancet, approximately 24.3 million people had dementia worldwide in 2005, with 4.6 new cases every year. The number of people with dementia will double every two decades and reach 81.1 million by 2040. The rate of increase is expected to be faster in developing countries which have rapidly-growing life expectancies. (Lancet. 2005 Dec 17;366(9503):2112-7)

Sources - The Alzheimer's Society (UK), NIH, Wikipedia, The Lancet

UK Conductor And HIs Wife End Their Own Lives At Swiss Assisted Suicide Clinic

A well known UK orchestra conductor Sir Edward Thomas Downes, CBE, and his wife Lady Joan Downes have died after choosing to end their lives together at the Swiss assisted suicide clinic Dignitas.

Sir Edward who was 85 and suffering from a terminal illness, and his wife Joan who was 74 "died peacefully, and under circumstances of their own choosing" according to a statement issued by their family and reported by the BBC earlier today.

Their family said that the couple decided to end their lives together as they did not wish to struggle with health problems.

According to a statement issued by their son and daughter, Caractacus and Boudicca, who announced the death of their parents with "great sadness", the couple died on Friday 10 July, reported the Daily Telegraph.

Lady Joan was thought to have been suffering with cancer and Sir Edward was nearly blind and had lost much of his hearing.

The statement from the family said that the couple had been together for "54 happy years".

Sir Edward had led a vigorous, long and distinguished career as a conductor, including a 40-year association with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra; and before becoming her husband's personal assistant, Lady Joan had been a ballet dancer, a choreographer and a TV producer.

"They both lived life to the full and considered themselves to be extremely lucky to have lived such rewarding lives, both professionally and personally," said the statement.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said their deaths were being investigated but there were no further details at this stage.

Sir Edward was born in Birmingham in 1924 and started playing the violin when he was 5 years old. Later on he won a scholarship to Aberdeen and then studied with the eminent German conductor Hermann Scherchen.

In the decades that followed he became Associate Music Director of the Royal Opera, and conducted over 50 seasons at Covent Garden.

He was Chief Guest Conductor at the BBC Philharmonic, and served as Principal Conductor from 1980 to 1991 and later became Conductor Emeritus.

Sir Edward, who became CBE in 1986 and was knighted in 1991, also held other positions with world famous orchestras in Australia and The Netherlands, and was showered with honours from several music colleges, universities, and other organizations, and won many awards, including the Laurence Olivier award.

The Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas that helped Sir Edward and Lady Joan end their lives has been in the news in the UK quite a lot recently.

More than 100 people from the UK have chosen to end their lives there, most of them because they were terminally ill.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4 in January this year, the founder and current leader of the clinic, lawyer-trained Ludwig Minelli defended helping Britons, including some psychiatric patients, to kill themselves.

He said that failed attempts to commit suicide were a huge cost for the NHS.

"I have a totally different attitude to suicide. I say suicide is a marvellous marvellous possibility given to a human being," said Minelli, who has since complained that many people took his phrase " I say suicide is a marvellous marvellous possibility" out of context.

On the Dignitas website is a defence of this statement that points out Minelli meant in the context of what he said next in the interview:

"Suicide is a very good possibility to escape a situation which you can't alter."

Another reason Dignitas has been in the news is because a former worker has been talking to the media about why she left the organisation and why she is campaigning to have it shut down.

In an interview with the Daily Mail in January, 51-year old nurse Soraya Wernli, who worked at Dignitas for two and a half years, accused the organisation of being more concerned with making money than about ethical euthanasia.

Wernli has issued lawsuits against Minelli, and for the last 8 months of her employ she worked as an undercover informant for the police, who according to the news report are also concerned about Minelli.

Wernli is writing a book titled The Business With The Deadly Cocktails where she promises to give details of how Dignitas was a "principled and necessary organisation gone bad", she told the Daily Mail.

She said one of the things that worried her was the speed with which people arrived, were quickly seen by Minelli, and then helped to die.

"People land at the airport, are ferried to his office, have their requisite half-an-hour with a doctor, get the barbiturates they need and are then sent off to die," she told the paper.

"This is the biggest step anyone will ever take. They should at least be allowed to stay overnight, to think about what they are doing," said Wernli.

There has also been criticism of the way that Dignitas helped a British 23-year old rugby player, Daniel James, to commit suicide last year after he was paralysed while playing rugby.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity SANE told the BBC that Minelli was offering:

"A seductive but dangerous solution to the feelings of anguish and hopelessness experienced by some people with mental illness."

Instead of a "one-way ticket to despair and unnecessary death", people should have more options, such as greater access to effective treatment, she added.

H1N1 Pandemic Flu Virus More Virulent Than Previously Thought

Researchers from the US and Japan studying the new H1N1 pandemic flu virus suggest that it is more virulent than previously thought. They found the virus seizes hold in cells deep inside the lungs, leading to pneumonia and in more severe cases, death, whereas seasonal flu viruses only infect cells in the upper respiratory tract.

University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist and leading authority on influenza, Dr Yoshihiro Kawaoka led the international team of researchers in a detailed investigation of the pandemic H1N1 virus and its pathogenic properties and wrote about their findings in a fast-track report published online on 13 July in the journal Nature.

The researchers wrote that the spread of the new strain of influenza A virus that the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic on 11 June is probably due to the fact there are many humans with little or no pre-existing immunity.

Kawaoka, a professor of pathobiological sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and a professor at the University of Tokyo, said this virus was misunderstood in that many people were under the impression it was like seasonal influenza, but this study shows that is not the case:

"There is clear evidence the virus is different than seasonal influenza," said Kawaoka.

The ability to infect deep inside the lungs is similar to that of other pandemic viruses, including the 1918 strain that killed tens of millions of people around the world, said the researchers.

It also bears other similarities to the 1918 strain in that people born before 1918 have antibodies that protect against today's pandemic strain.

Kawaoka said it is also possible that the virus could evolve new properties.

For the study, the researchers infected mice, ferrets and non-human primates with pandemic H1N1 and seasonal flu from samples obtained from human patients in California, Wisconsin, the Netherlands and Japan.

They found that the pandemic flu strain replicated much more efficiently in the respiratory system than the seasonal flu. It also caused severe lesions in the lungs, closely resembling the damage caused by other pandemic strains.

Kawaoke said:

"The H1N1 virus replicates significantly better in the lungs."

Also, using specific-pathogen-free miniature pigs, the researchers found that the virus spread in pigs without showing any clinical symptoms.

The team were also able to assess the immune response of different people to the new virus. They found that those who had been exposed to the 1918 strain (all now in advanced old age) had antibodies that neutralized the novel pandemic H1N1 virus.

"The people who have high antibody titers are the people born before 1918," said Kawaoke.

But, although the discovery that the new H1N1 strain is potentially more dangerous than previously reported is a matter for concern, Kawaoke said the good thing was that it does respond to existing and experimental antivirals and these provide a potentially effective first line of defence against the virus.

From a public health point of view, a first line of defence is important because it slows down the spread of a virus for a few months while a vaccine is being mass produced.

There are three approved antivirals on the market and the team tested two of them and also two experimental ones that are not yet approved. They tested the drugs on mice and found that:

"The existing and experimental drugs work well in animal models, suggesting they will work in humans," said Kawaoka.

The research was sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.