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Tuesday, March 21, 2006The H5N1 virus responsible for the current virulent strain of bird flu has evolved into two genetically distinct strains, US scientists have confirmed. ...Back in 2003 we only had one genetically distinct population of H5N1 with the potential to cause a human pandemic. Now we have two Prior to 2005 every known human case of bird flu had been caused by a particular subtype of the H5N1 virus, which infected people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. But the latest analysis by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified a genetically distinct variant which appears to have emerged last year, infecting people in Indonesia. ....The virus is still a bird virus, it is not yet a human virus, and it may never be a human virus . The problem is, the presence of two strains makes it all that much harder to predict which one could make the jump the people, which in turn makes plans for producing a vaccine beforehand more difficult. That's already a difficult task because there's no way to tell how effective any vaccine would be in people before a pandemic occurs. posted by Sydney on 3/21/2006 08:39:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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