John Fauber

Swine flu might hit a third of Americans

BETHESDA, Md. – H1N1 swine flu likely will be the dominate flu strain this year, out-competing seasonal flu and infecting as many as one-third of Americans, according to Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert. “This is a virus that spreads absolutely as efficiently as a virus can spread,” Fauci said in a meeting Thursday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other reporters. The good news is while the virus spreads easily, it produces mild disease in most people, said Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.