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Re: Man Made H5N1 - Super Version
Should Journals Describe How Scientists Made a Killer Flu?
H5N1 avian flu rarely infects humans, but it is deadly when it does. Since the virus first emerged in humans in Hong Kong in 1997, nearly 600 people have been infected worldwide and almost 60% have died.
The virus isn?t very transmissible, but scientists have long worried that it might mutate, perhaps through reassortment with a human flu strain, and gain the ability to pass easily from person to person like human flus, such as the H1N1/A strain that triggered a pandemic in 2009. More than a decade since its emergence in humans, however, that fear has yet to come true, and H5N1 remains only an occasional threat for the rare person who contracts it ? usually from close contact with a sick bird.
If H5N1 gained the ability to spread virulently, we might face another world-changing virus like the 1918 flu, but so far, at least, we?ve been lucky.
But just because nature hasn?t figured out a way to create an easily transmissible H5N1 doesn?t mean that scientists can?t. In experiments conducted at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, researchers engineered a strain of H5N1 that spread easily between ferrets ? which means it can probably spread easily between people. (Ferrets are a commonly used animal model for studying human flu.)
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Should Journals Describe How Scientists Made a Killer Flu?
H5N1 avian flu rarely infects humans, but it is deadly when it does. Since the virus first emerged in humans in Hong Kong in 1997, nearly 600 people have been infected worldwide and almost 60% have died.
The virus isn?t very transmissible, but scientists have long worried that it might mutate, perhaps through reassortment with a human flu strain, and gain the ability to pass easily from person to person like human flus, such as the H1N1/A strain that triggered a pandemic in 2009. More than a decade since its emergence in humans, however, that fear has yet to come true, and H5N1 remains only an occasional threat for the rare person who contracts it ? usually from close contact with a sick bird.
If H5N1 gained the ability to spread virulently, we might face another world-changing virus like the 1918 flu, but so far, at least, we?ve been lucky.
But just because nature hasn?t figured out a way to create an easily transmissible H5N1 doesn?t mean that scientists can?t. In experiments conducted at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, researchers engineered a strain of H5N1 that spread easily between ferrets ? which means it can probably spread easily between people. (Ferrets are a commonly used animal model for studying human flu.)
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