Jump to full article: Winnipeg (Manitoba) Free Press (ca), 2009-11-27
Author: Jen Skerritt
Intro: WINNIPEG researchers will test to see whether smokers or children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of falling severely ill from H1N1.Dr. Sat Sharma, director of respiratory labs at St. Boniface General Hospital, said smoking is one potential H1N1 risk factor that hasn't been studied, and may give researchers another clue as to why H1N1 causes severe illness in some and relatively mild sickness in others.
Sharma is part of a team of local researchers who recently received a federal grant to study how H1N1 attacks the body differently than seasonal influenza. While scientists know that certain risk factors, among them pregnancy and aboriginal ancestry, put people at a higher risk of severe illness from H1N1, they still do not know why.
Sharma said researchers will analyze cells from the blood and lungs of Manitobans hospitalized with severe H1N1 along with samples from people who experienced a mild bout of flu in the first or second flu wave.
The tests could allow scientists to tease out what protects some people against severe H1N1 and predisposes others to it.
"(Smoking) appears to be one factor not identified previously," Sharma said. "We'll be looking at that in a lot more detail."
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