Brooks City-Base lab on the front lines of flu battle

One of the front lines of the flu battle is right here in San Antonio, where scientists are seeing amazing numbers of patient samples come through their lab.

is home to thousands of flu samples from all over the world. The work in the epidemiology lab helps determine what's in the vaccine you get in your arm.

It's been a record-setting year at the lab, a facility that gathers samples from sick patients at air bases and clinics all over the world. Those samples are frozen and shipped to San Antonio, where scientists grow them and identify them.

They were startled when the novel "swine flu" cropped up in April, and since then business has been booming.

"It is spreading. It's hard for respiratory illnesses not to spread," said Linda Canas, a microbiologist who is the technical supervisor of virology. "Just before this started, we were doing about 30 specimens a day. The week after this was announced, we got 250 a day."

In all of 2008, the epidemiology lab processed 8,000 specimens. Since January of this year, that number has exploded, with 20,000 samples flooding through here already. It shows no signs of slowing down.

"This new virus has spread around the world very rapidly," explained Maj. Thomas Gibbons, Chief of Molecular Diagnostics. "And so every day we get hundreds of samples."

Molecular geneticists create what they called the genetic fingerprint of the viruses. The good news about swine flu is that so far, it doesn't seem to be changing quickly.

The preliminary data gathered here helped determine what's in the current H1N1 vaccine.

The scientists who work in the lab have some reassuring words for the public. "The current swine flu does not appear to be any more serious than our normal seasonal flu. But that does not mean that it's still not something to be taken seriously," Canas commented. "But we're always watching. One thing I've learned is you do not predict what flu is going to do."

The military flu surveillance program works hand in hand with the CDC and the World Health Organization to stay up with the ever-changing face of flu. They expect to be extra-busy through at least February.