Hi All,
I am new to this forum and I apologize if I am asking some questions that others have covered. I am a scientist with training in medical microbiology, molecular biology and immunology, but do not have any expertise in influenza or bird flu. I am however genuinely alarmed by the possibility of a H5N1 pandemic, and the probably very real possibility that the virus will eventually mutate to a strain that can be easily transmitted from human to human.
I have some specific questions that I would like to throw out there, not only for my own personal education, but perhaps as food for thought. Given the premise as a scientist that under uncontrolled conditions that what can go wrong will go wrong and probably all ready has, here are my questions.
1) Who is watching? Is it just the WHO keeping records and responding to possible outbreaks? If say, there is a reported cluster of cases tomorrow in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, or god forbid North Korea, does anyone from WHO even bother to go anymore to collect data and specimens. What are the qualifications of the people who respond? Are we relying on each governments own ability to collect data, specimens, quarantine the area, etc.... Is there a standard process for this that governments strictly adhere to?
2) Who does the testing to determine whether or not it is "Bird Flu." What kind of test is it? Is it an antibody based test that relies on say hemmaglutination? What company makes this test? Is there adequate quality control or testing to ensure adequate results? Or are we just relying on untrained veterinary personeel from third world countries to perform this test. Are specimens from each outbreak required by WHO to be sent out to a central collection center for verification/genotyping?
3) I have seen an influenza gene section on the GenBank website. Who is actively sequencing the outbreak isolates? Is there central funding for this, or is this like the rest of science with having to fight and scramble for funding to perform the basic research necessary? Are they required to deposit their sequences in a public databank such as GenBank?
4) Is anyone routinely given the "job" of constantly performing recombination and phylogenetic analyses on these sequences to determine how fast the virus in different areas may be mutating, recombining? Has it been shown using some of these DNA recombination programs (which admittedly I don't understand the math behind) that influenza does recombine, or does it simply mutate? If it does recombine with host sequences or other viruses, does it have segments that are more "recombigenic" than others?
Sorry for so many questions, and if they have been adequately covered elsewhere.
Curious and Concerned
I am new to this forum and I apologize if I am asking some questions that others have covered. I am a scientist with training in medical microbiology, molecular biology and immunology, but do not have any expertise in influenza or bird flu. I am however genuinely alarmed by the possibility of a H5N1 pandemic, and the probably very real possibility that the virus will eventually mutate to a strain that can be easily transmitted from human to human.
I have some specific questions that I would like to throw out there, not only for my own personal education, but perhaps as food for thought. Given the premise as a scientist that under uncontrolled conditions that what can go wrong will go wrong and probably all ready has, here are my questions.
1) Who is watching? Is it just the WHO keeping records and responding to possible outbreaks? If say, there is a reported cluster of cases tomorrow in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, or god forbid North Korea, does anyone from WHO even bother to go anymore to collect data and specimens. What are the qualifications of the people who respond? Are we relying on each governments own ability to collect data, specimens, quarantine the area, etc.... Is there a standard process for this that governments strictly adhere to?
2) Who does the testing to determine whether or not it is "Bird Flu." What kind of test is it? Is it an antibody based test that relies on say hemmaglutination? What company makes this test? Is there adequate quality control or testing to ensure adequate results? Or are we just relying on untrained veterinary personeel from third world countries to perform this test. Are specimens from each outbreak required by WHO to be sent out to a central collection center for verification/genotyping?
3) I have seen an influenza gene section on the GenBank website. Who is actively sequencing the outbreak isolates? Is there central funding for this, or is this like the rest of science with having to fight and scramble for funding to perform the basic research necessary? Are they required to deposit their sequences in a public databank such as GenBank?
4) Is anyone routinely given the "job" of constantly performing recombination and phylogenetic analyses on these sequences to determine how fast the virus in different areas may be mutating, recombining? Has it been shown using some of these DNA recombination programs (which admittedly I don't understand the math behind) that influenza does recombine, or does it simply mutate? If it does recombine with host sequences or other viruses, does it have segments that are more "recombigenic" than others?
Sorry for so many questions, and if they have been adequately covered elsewhere.
Curious and Concerned
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