Washington, Jun 30: Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the US science journal PNAS.
Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009.
It possesses "all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans," say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The researchers then carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans -- principally fever, coughing and sneezing.
G4 was observed to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses.
Tests also showed that any immunity humans gain from exposure to seasonal flu does not provide protection from G4.
According to blood tests which showed up antibodies created by exposure to the virus, 10.4 percent of swine workers had already been infected.
The tests showed that as many as 4.4 percent of the general population also appeared to have been exposed.
The virus has therefore already passed from animals to humans but there is no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human -- the scientists' main worry.
"It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic," the researchers wrote.
The authors called for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs.
"The work comes as a salutary reminder that we are constantly at risk of new emergence of zoonotic pathogens and that farmed animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, may act as the source for important pandemic viruses," said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University.
A zoonotic infection is caused by a pathogen that has jumped from a non-human animal into a human.
Comments
May be because of infected Gomoothra
JINU...
How did U come into being... QURAN speaks on our CREATOR who created all that exits... and It asks us to use our intellectual which ALLAH has given us. I request you to PONDER on what it says...
Please read the QURAN once & research what it says... Dont just sit idle and make your own asumption. living a life of unaware... about the CREATOR will be worse than animals..
May God help them all! They are all innocents.
Devaru kotta prasada beda annbardu...! May be some sanghi poojaris' wanted to cut down cost for his selfishness. Probe needed.
May the victims recover soon!
I agree, believing blindly doesnt make sense... But God has given intellectual to human being and he created us to worship him alone... Y dont we use our intellectual to know who is worthy of Worship rather than worshiping idols and animals...
Even in vedas, it say that those who worship such things are in DARKNESS...So to come out of such DARKNESS ... the idols or man made god worshipers should try to know who is GOD and Y we need IDOLs to reach GOD...
God says he is near to any caller, there is no need keep any life less object and ask with it... in other sense U can call him by saying \O the one who put soul in me, who gave life to me ...Guide me.No doubt his help will come to those who trust him... Try it."
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