immune ?

[brionon]

Just seen Sheila Hancock on TV. repeat the idea that Old people are ,somehow,immune to Swine 'Flu. does anyone Know if there is any truth in this,please ?

[mrs_overall]

I read somewhere that if you were alive when there was the last major flu epidemic (1958?) you should have a massive amount of immunity.

[Sqad]

brionon.

There has been a couple of threads on this very topic on AB and epidemiological studies seem to indicate that:

1)H1N1 has a preference for the under 40's rather than the over 65's.
2) There MAY be some truth in that the over 65's have some immunity because of previous contact, although in my opinion unlikely because the antigenic structure (make up) of H1N1 hasn't been seen before.