Man-made super-flu could kill half humanity

Man-made super-flu could kill half humanity



Avian influenza virus, TEM (NIBSC/Science Photo Library)

A virus with the potential to kill up to half the world’s
population has been made in a lab. Now academics and bioterrorism
experts are arguing over whether to publish the recipe, and whether the
research should have been done in the first place.

­The virus is an H5N1 bird flu strain which was genetically altered to become much more contagious. It was created by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who first presented his work to the public at an influenza conference in Malta in September.
Fouchier said the strain circulates in animals, particularly birds, but rarely affects humans.
In
the ten or so years since bird flu first emerged in Asia, fewer than
600 cases have been reported in humans. But the H5N1 strain is
particularly vicious, killing roughly half of patients diagnosed with
it. What stops it from becoming a major threat to public health is that
it does not readily transmit from human to human. Or at least it
didn’t – until now.
Researchers in Fouchier’s team used ferrets –
test animals which closely mimic the human response to influenza – and
transmitted H5N1 from one to another to make it more adaptable to new
hosts. After 10 generations, the virus had mutated to become airborne,
which means ferrets became ill from merely being near other diseased
animals.
A genetic study showed that the new, dangerous strain had
only five mutations compared to the original one, and all of them were
earlier seen in the natural environment – just not all at once.
Fouchier’s strain is as contagious as the human seasonal flu, which
kills tens of thousands of people each year, but is likely to cause many
more fatalities if released.

"I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one," Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist who has worked on anthrax for many years, told Science Insider. "I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."
Now
Keim, who chairs the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity
(NSABB), and other members of the body, have a very difficult decision
to make. Fouchier wants his study to be published. So does virologist
Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led similar research in collaboration with the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of Tokyo, and
reached comparable results. And it is up to NSABB to give them the green
light.
Many academics and biosecurity experts are naturally
cautious about releasing information which could provide any
bioterrorist with a ready recipe to hold the world to ransom. Some argue
that such work should never have been done in the first place and call
for international monitoring of potentially harmful research.
"It's
just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and
highly contagious virus. And it's a second bad idea for them to publish
how they did it so others can copy it," believes Dr. Thomas
Inglesby, a bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for
Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
However
the very same data, if made available to the scientific community,
could potentially allow humanity to prepare for an H5N1 pandemic, which
Fouchier’s study has shown to be far more probable than was previously
believed. Clamping down on freedom of information in the scientific
domain may in the end leave us defenseless against the flu, should it
arise naturally.
NSABB plans to issue a public statement soon,
says Keim, and is likely to issue additional recommendations about this
type of research. "We'll have a lot to say," he says.


Source:-
http://rt.com/news/bird-flu-killer-strain-119/