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Oscar Arias, the President of Costa Rica, has been diagnosed with the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the Swine Flu. The Central American nation has lost 78 people to the virus with over 700 confirmed cases of infection. On the other side of the globe, there have been 96 confirmed virus attacks in Iraq, with the majority infecting US soldiers there. While the H1N1 virus has remained relatively mild in terms of symptoms, and has killed fewer numbers of people than the expected seasonal influenza, it has spread quite rapidly across the globe, leading the World Health Organization to formally declare it a global pandemic this June. The strain is one that has not been seen before by scientists, who are racing to develop, test, and release a vaccine to the public. The fear is that the virus could mutate into a more aggressive form any day, particularly as cooler fall and winter weather approaches.

GUEST: John Barry, award winning writer and New York Times best-selling author of The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Bio-environmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities.