Bird flu safer, swine version spreads
Fri May 15th, 2009
Bird flu may not be as dangerous to humans as feared, British researchers said, as concern grew about south-east Asia.
Two cases of swine flu were confirmed in Thailand - raising fears that the bug could take hold in the region during the flu season.
The Thai government said it had quarantined travellers from Mexico - and ten people are still in quarantine.
Globally some 6,497 cases of swine flu have been confirmed, including 60 deaths in Mexico, three in the USA and single deaths in Canada and Costa Rica, according to the World Health Organisation.
In Britain the number of confirmed cases reached 78 yesterday. Four new cases were people who contracted the virus from other infected people in Britain.
Meanwhile researchers at Imperial College, London, put forward for a theory to explain why lethal strains of bird flu are unlikely to take a hold on humans.
They have found that bird flu viruses are unlikely to thrive in the human nose - which has a temperature of 32 degrees C. Instead the viruses need the temperature of the gut of a bird, which is about 40 degrees C.
Researcher Professor Wendy Barclay said: "Bird viruses are out there all the time but they can only cause pandemics when they undergo certain changes.
"Our study gives vital clues about what kinds of changes would be needed in order for them to mutate and infect humans, potentially helping us to identify which viruses could lead to a pandemic.
"By studying a range of different viruses in systems like this one we can look for warnings that they are already beginning to make the kinds of genetic changes in nature that mean they could be poised to jump into humans; animal viruses that spread well at low temperatures in these cultures could be more likely to cause the next pandemic than those which are restricted."
Avian Influenza Virus Glycoproteins Restrict Virus Replication and Spread through Human Airway Epithelium at Temperatures of the Proximal Airways" PLoS Pathogens, Thursday 14 May 2009
Tags: Flu & Viruses | World Health | North America | Travel | UK News | Asia
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