Biology researchers from the Netherlands created the world's deadliest viruses. The influenza virus is spreading more rapidly and is expected to kill 60 percent of humans infected.
Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands, is the person who created this dangerous virus. It performs the genetic modification of the H5N1 bird flu virus is relatively difficult contagious. Five stages of mutation is enough to make virus strains evolve rapidly.
Fouchier job itself had presented at a conference on influenza, which was held in Malta, September 2011 ago. He also is filing a publishing scientific papers describing the process of creating these viruses.
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| The Death Virus H5N1 bird flue strain. (Picture from: http://pikapvs.wordpress.com/) |
Fouchier job itself had presented at a conference on influenza, which was held in Malta, September 2011 ago. He also is filing a publishing scientific papers describing the process of creating these viruses.
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.
But this paper is re-examined by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) United States. "No pathogenic organisms are more terrible than this. Even anthrax is less dangerous than the virus," said NSABB Chief Paul Keim.
The historical record shows, the greatest influenza pandemic occurred in 1918. Viruses are spread when it is H1N1 and killed 40-50 million people.
The death rate due to viral infection has reached 2 percent of infected patients. Meanwhile, a new virus Fouchier findings had a death rate reached 60 percent, with the ability to spread more quickly.
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.. *** [ANTON WILLIAM | DAILYMAIL | KORAN TEMPO 3721]
The historical record shows, the greatest influenza pandemic occurred in 1918. Viruses are spread when it is H1N1 and killed 40-50 million people.
The death rate due to viral infection has reached 2 percent of infected patients. Meanwhile, a new virus Fouchier findings had a death rate reached 60 percent, with the ability to spread more quickly.
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.. *** [ANTON WILLIAM | DAILYMAIL | KORAN TEMPO 3721]
