Scientists to create a deadly human pandemic from bird flu H7N9

Scientists to create mutant form of new bird flu virus to work out risk of it causing a deadly human pandemic

• Deadly forms of H7N9 will be made in high security labs around the world
• New bird virus has already infected at least 133 people in China and Taiwan
• Forty-three people have died according to World Health Organisation
• Scientists said it is vital to prepare for a lethal human pandemic

Scientists are to create mutant forms of the H7N9 bird flu virus that has emerged in China so they can work out the risk of a lethal human pandemic.

Highly transmissible and deadly forms of H7N9 will be made in several high security laboratories around the world - but it is vital to prepare for the threat, the scientists say.

The new bird flu virus, which was unknown in humans until February, has already infected at least 133 people in China and Taiwan, killing 43 of them, according to the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) data.
Members of staff at a chicken slaughter house in the suburb of Shanghai, China...

Click to expand...

It aims to identify combinations of genetic mutations that allow an animal virus to jump to humans and spread easily.

By finding the mutations needed, researchers and health authorities can better assess how likely it is that a new virus could become dangerous and if so, how soon they should begin developing drugs, vaccines and other scientific defenses.

Yet such work is highly controversial. It has fuelled an international row in the past two years after it was carried out on another threatening bird flu virus called H5N1.

Click to expand...

When Fouchier and Kawaoka announced in late 2011 they had found how to make H5N1 into a form that could spread between mammals, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) was so alarmed that it took the unprecedented step of trying to censor publication of the studies....

Click to expand...

'Nature is the biggest threat to us, not what we do in the lab. What we do in the lab is under very intense biosecurity measures,' he said.
The experiments aim to identify combinations of genetic mutations that allow an animal virus to jump to humans and spread.

'There are layers upon layers of layers of biosafety measures such that if one layer might break there are additional layers to prevent this virus ever coming out.'

Fouchier said research has been 'under fire' recently.

'One of the accusations against the flu community was that we were not transparent enough about what experiments were being done, and why and how they were being done,' he said.

Click to expand...