Flu bug

CNN has tracked down what they think might be the first person who came down with swine flu, a 5-year-old boy who was sick in March and is now fully recovered. There is a large commercial pig farm near where he lives but they are unclear about exactly how the virus might have made the jump from animal to human, in his case. Apparently they took a blood sample from the child at the time and tested it again later, so they know - as they didn't at the time - that what he had was actually the new strain. (Here's Sanjay Gupta's blog on cnn.com but I haven't seen what they were just saying on the air hit the website yet.)

They also said the virus has now been identified as an H1N1 influenza and is not the same thing as the "seasonal flu" - for whatever good that does. Different viruses, obviously - apparently the seasonal variants are the ones that are more likely to hit the old and the young, and that doesn't happen with this one, as we've already been hearing. (This post on Dr Gupta's blog talks about the differences.)

(I'm not sitting around worrying about the flu but I'm interested in the epidemiological angle. Maybe I missed my calling.)