World's in 'new territory' with challenging new flu virus, WHO expert says

[Pathfinder]

World's in 'new territory' with challenging new flu virus, WHO expert says

By Helen Branswell, The Canadian PressApril 15, 2013 10:50 AM

TORONTO - There has been bird flu. And swine flu. But the world is on new flu ground when it comes to the H7N9 virus that recently erupted in China, the World Health Organization's senior flu expert said Friday.
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Though its genetic blueprint makes clear it is a bird flu virus, H7N9 carries a number of mutations that indicate it is partially adapted to infecting mammals ? which may help explain the rapidly accumulating human cases.
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"I think we are genuinely in new territory here in which the situation of having something that is low path in birds (yet) appears to be so pathogenic in people," Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's assistant director-general for health security and environment, said in an interview.

"And then to have those genetic changes ... I simply don't know what that combination is going to lead to."
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"Almost everything you can imagine is possible. And then what's likely to happen are the things which you can't imagine," Fukuda, who spent years as an influenza epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control before joining the WHO, said of the virus he has studied for so long.
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http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health...+expert+says/8236633/story.html#ixzz2QYPILCXR

 

[jeffrey]

Re: World's in 'new territory' with challenging new flu virus, WHO expert says

Sounds Omnious!

 

[JimO]

Re: World's in 'new territory' with challenging new flu virus, WHO expert says

I'm glad he's being frank with the public. It is a little unnerving that even the experts don't know what to make of this.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: World's in 'new territory' with challenging new flu virus, WHO expert says

It is like drawing conclusion without having a complete picture of the events.

I would suggest a communication approach much more cautious.

If the experts reached a consensus about the pandemic potential of H7N9 then the consequence is to elevate the Pandemic Alert Level from current (3) interpandemic to Five, so that monovalent vaccine production will start without further delay, just after the seed is isolated and tested for immunogenicity.

It is also Worth to underline the fact that nobody was able to track this virus before its spillover into humans, perhaps due to lack of veterinary control and communication. In other words, we was caught by surprise again, notwithstanding the huge amount of avian influenza viruses studies and immense amount of money spent.

An old scientist, Konstantin von Economo, said that the world would have not to be caught by surprise again (after spanish flu pandemic) but apparently and despite all these meetings and fanfare the world is in the same risk situation as it was more than 100 years ago.