Posted on 04/30/2009 9:28:16 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new virus that has killed as many as 177 people and spread globally is a mongrel that appears to have mixed with another hybrid virus containing swine, bird and human bits, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
Raul Rabadan and colleagues at Columbia University in New York analyzed the published genetic sequences from the H1N1 virus that has brought the world to the brink of a pandemic.
"The closest relatives to the virus we have found are swine viruses," Rabadan said in a telephone interview.
"Six segments of the virus are related to swine viruses from North America and the other two from swine viruses isolated in Europe/Asia," they wrote in the online journal Eurosurveillance.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week after discovering this virus in two U.S. children that it had four virus types -- two swine, an avian and a human component.
It may be even more complex than that.
Influenza viruses mutate constantly and they also swap genetic material with one another promiscuously, especially if an animal or person is infected with two strains at once.
Rabadan's team said this particular strain looked partly like another hybrid, or what scientists call a reassortant, virus.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I wonder what the ‘RATS are up to while the “media” has everyone focused on this flu thing.
That pic of the green ‘dealie” in the upper-left hand looks like what my son coughed up into my hand a month ago when we felt like we were dying.
Three weeks to complete recovery. It’s bad and nasty and in other news the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
mY THOUGHTS EXACTLY...MAYBE OBAMA TOOK IT TO MEXICO?
Ah, the H1N1 is now probably the 90210 or whatever but not a swine flu no siree.
Whatever it is, you know it's against America's interest.
Ping...
- Sebilus confirmed as Secretary of HHS
- $3.5T budget passed (first steps toward National Healthcare included)
- Vote to authorize (unconstitutional) "cramdown" of mortgages (failed)
We had that lung crud all over the place up here (Western North Dakota/Eastern Montana) back in November/December. It is particularly tough to shake and required antibiotics that the doctors here don't normally prescribe (Cipro, Levaquin). One course of Zithromax didn't shake it, it took two courses fairly close together or it came back. Nasty stuff. The Doctor's offices were swamped...
Harold Koh Confirmation Hearing more at link
(must be getting late...)
Stage for WHO, Obama Admin., Universal HealthCare
ping
Glad to hear you recovered well. I’d like to think those of us that went through this last flu bug have developed some immunity to the next one.
The interesting thing is this flu is a mixture of bird, swine and human strains of the flu.
The 1918 flu was almost pure avian.....which may explain why this is not as deadly (yet).
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