Posted on 05/03/2006 7:04:49 PM PDT by blam
There's more than one bird flu, experts warn
16:13 03 May 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Shaoni Bhattacharya, Singapore
The deadly H5N1 bird flu which is currently sweeping across the globe is not the only potential candidate virus for the next human flu pandemic strain, experts have warned.
At an international meeting of top scientists and policymakers in Singapore on Wednesday, several other avian flu viruses were highlighted. Hiroshi Kida, at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, told New Scientist he was concerned that only the H5N1 virus was being considered in terms of producing a human vaccine. “There are other possibilities,” he says.
There are about three human flu pandemics every century, and most scientists agree that the world is overdue for the next one. This would happen if an avian influenza strain either mutated or swapped genes with other flu strains to become both highly pathogenic and easily transmissible between humans.
It is "perfectly possible" that the next pandemic strain could derive from something other than the H5N1 strain, agrees Malik Peiris, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, China.
Flu virus strains are named after two surface proteins which are important for its binding – haemagglutinin, the H component, and neuraminidase, the N component. There are 15 known variations on the H receptor and 9 on the N receptor for influenza A.
Nasty outcome
Peiris notes that the 1957 and 1968 human pandemic flu strains did not come from a highly pathogenic bird flu virus like H5N1. He says that a milder virus like H9N2, which is present all over the world, could be the next pandemic strain.
Other pandemic candidates include the H7N7 strain, which came to attention in the UK last week, when a single human case was diagnosed. It also killed a vet in an outbreak in The Netherlands in 2003, after jumping to at least 89 people from poultry. In the human case it had undergone a mutation which made it more dangerous.
But Peiris adds that when H9N2 infects humans it currently causes a mild disease, whereas there could be a “very nasty outcome” if H5N1 were to become pandemic.
“So all the attention focused on it is very, very valid,” he says. The latest outbreak, which has spread from south Asia, via Qinghai Lake in China, to Europe and Africa, has caused 205 human cases and 113 deaths (see New Scientist's bird flu special report).
Frozen faeces
But there are dozens of strains of bird flu in circulation in the wild, says Kida. In a four year study, which is still ongoing, he and colleagues isolated bird flu subtypes from over 10,000 samples of faecal matter from wild ducks in Alaska, Siberia, Mongolia, China and Japan. The frozen samples were collected from lakes during the winter. The researchers found 49 different bird flu strains.
And when they experimentally infected pigs with these bird flu strains, many of them underwent genetic reassortment. Pigs are thought to act as a “mixing vessel” for flu and other diseases, where new combinations of genes from different strains can come together. The team has also created 76 other flu subtypes in the lab by genetic reassortment.
They have 123 combinations of H and N subtypes stocked as potential vaccine strain candidates. Kida believes these may be “invaluable” as potential vaccine strains and also for diagnostics. “Any subtype could get into humans,” he says.
Overall, scientists have isolated every bird flu subtype – H1 to H15 and N1 to N9 –from ducks which remain symptom-free, says Kida.
Kind of like the two party myth
If the left one dont gettcha then the right one will...
guess the 'experts' need more funding to evaluate their potential models for the already mutated into multiples strains bird flu.
More to add to our worries;
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
This information is current as of today, Wed May 03 2006 14:02:13 GMT-0700.
The Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico
This Public Announcement is being issued to alert U.S. citizens to the upcoming Hurricane Season in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. The official hurricane season runs from June through November. This Public Announcement expires on December 7, 2006.
The National Weather Service predicts that the 2006 hurricane season will be as active as the 2005 season, when 27 named storms and 15 hurricanes caused widespread havoc, billions of dollars in infrastructure damage, and resulted in thousands of fatalities.
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_2916.html
Jeez...
I'm as ready as I'm gonna be. Hurricanes - Bird Flu - War with Iran...It's always something.
I'm still waiting for E-Bowl-Eye and the Swine Flu. Still waiting...
I've read Chile is still friendly towards U.S. citizens if we have to flee this country.
and I just gave in at our local feed store!
I am now an elderly "chicken mommy" to 6 sweet teensie babies. I am looking forward to fresh eggs, new raised beds, good compost, not to mention fewer dandelions, etc.
If the "bird flu" hits, what do I do? Wring their tiny li'l necks? Hide them in the basement till it blows over? Inquiring minds really want to know...
In the meantime, anyone want organic, really fresh eggs?
The commercial farmers are going to keep their birds indoors and not expose them to birds or free-range chickens.
Kill 'em all..let God sort 'em out.
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