Posted on 11/29/2006 7:49:48 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Flu Can Bide Time In Icy Limbo Before Re-emerging, Biologist Believes
It sounds like a campy ‘50s horror movie (“It Came from the Ice!”), but a Bowling Green State University biologist believes it's a very real possibility. Dr. Scott Rogers is talking about the potential for long-dormant strains of influenza, packed in ice in remote global outposts, to be unleashed by melting and migratory birds.
“We've found viral RNA in the ice in Siberia, and it's along the major flight paths of migrating waterfowl,” whose pathways take them to North America, Asia and Australia, and interconnect with other migratory paths to Europe and Africa, explains Rogers.
Viruses, he says, can be preserved in ice over long periods of time, then released decades later when humans may no longer be immune to them. For instance, survivors of the worldwide flu pandemic of 1918 had immunity to the responsible strain—called H1N1—but that immunity has died with them, meaning a recurrence “could take hold as an epidemic.”
H1, the first of 16 versions of the protein heamagglutinin, is what Rogers and his Russian and Israeli colleagues sought in their research, which is being published in the December issue of the Journal of Virology. The BGSU professor and biological sciences department chair believes it to be the first time anyone has found--and maybe even looked for--the viral RNA in ice.
The information could be used to help develop inoculation strategies for the future, according to Rogers, who also collaborates with Gang Zhang, a doctoral student who has performed the laboratory work at BGSU.
He points out that the World Health Organization annually considers what flu strains are emerging in hopes of tailoring vaccines accordingly. “Sometimes they're wrong,” he says. “We thought that by looking at what's melting and what birds are picking up,” better guesses for the next year might be possible.
The researchers are looking to expand their examination to Canadian and Alaskan lakes, along with those in Greenland, Antarctica and Siberia that they've already tested. In the study being reported in the virology journal, three lakes in northeast Siberia were sampled in 2001-02, with the virus found in the one that had attracted the most geese, Rogers notes.
In the summer, his colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences collected water and froze it, and in the winter, they cut ice samples out of the lakes with a sterilized saw. The samples were placed in bags and the ice was allowed to melt, after which the water was put in sterile bottles, which were then frozen and sent to Bowling Green.
It's getting “more and more difficult to ship water and ice on airplanes,” even more so now than right after Sept. 11, 2001, Rogers adds. “There are more delays for customs just to look at the samples,” which are packed in dry ice in plastic foam containers but nonetheless start melting after two or three days.
The H1 that he and his collaborators have found is closest to a strain that circulated from 1933-38 and again in the ‘60s.
“These certain strains come back from time to time,” he says. “People have studied the biotic (transmission) cycle over the years, but it's been clear that some of the virus should be mutating faster. But some of the strains come back, and they haven't mutated.
“We're at a really basic level right now,” Rogers adds, pointing out that it remains to be demonstrated that the frozen viruses are still alive. But “we think they can survive a long time” in ice, he reiterates, saying that tomato mosaic virus has been found in 140,000-year-old ice in Greenland.
Now in the middle of a two-year, $139,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, he presented a poster on the research at the 11th International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Pacific Rim, held Nov. 16-18 in Singapore.
Not a Russian boomer, though.
That means that when global warming melts the ice caps, we're dooooomed!
ping
You beat me to it.
Global Warming has gotten so bad, it's melting the birds.
So we have duck soup dropping from sky and ready to eat. That is a progress.:-)
Not to mention the fact that scientists are busy digging up the corpses of victims of long forgotten pestilences, plagues and epidemics that have been buried in permafrost.
This is how they have recovered still virulent strains of the Spanish flu that killed more people in 1918 than were killed by hostile action during World War I.
Great.
Anyone can do this if they are nefarious enough. There are all sorts of pathogens buried up in the reaches of Lapland, Nunavut, Siberia and other such places.
Ahh, I get it. Global warming has caused ice to melt which gives birds a chance to feed and pick up virsues and transmit them to humans and animals.
So the solution seems to be, if we go the global cooling route, mankind will starve and die off but those pesky birds won't be able to get at the food sources which hold the virus.
Sounds like a warmup to blaming 'global warming' on emerging infectious diseases...
Ping...(Thanks, null and void!)
Interesting. Thanks for the ping.
Here are a couple of interesting articles:
The best summary of H5N1 to date
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2006/11/one_of_the_best_h5n1_pieces_i.php
Health Canada issues Tamiflu warning
Carly Weeks, CanWest News service
Published: Thursday, November 30, 2006
Ten Canadians have died, including three this year, and at least 74 had adverse reactions after taking Tamiflu, but Health Canada didn't issue a public update about the flu drug until Wednesday.
The update came more than two weeks after international warnings were posted of adverse reactions to the medication among children and youth.
http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=7fb0da92-aee2-4124-a1e1-f56885cced79
Ping for Tamiflu warning..(see post 14).
Thanks, LucyT!
old ones too
The Case of the DDT Deniers - Kenya crazy talk.
Tiger, I missed that ping, but thanks anyway. I'm glad I get pinged for Joe's list. Thanks Joe, even if I don't express it much. I can't type. I keep my comments to when I have something to write.
"That means that when global warming melts the ice caps, we're dooooomed!"
About how long do we have? I need to make some plans.
You are welcome!
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