RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A new strain of the influenza virus with the potential to cause a pandemic has been identified in China, according to a new study.
This strain has recently emerged and has pigs as hosts, but can infect humans, say the research authors.
Scientists are concerned that it could mutate even further and spread easily from person to person, thus triggering a global outbreak.
They claim that the strain has “all the features” of being highly adaptable to infect humans and needs to be closely monitored.
Because it is a new strain of the influenza virus, which causes the flu, people may have little or no immunity to it.
Pandemic threat
A new strain of influenza is among the major threats that experts are monitoring, while the world is still trying to end the current pandemic of the novel coronavirus.
The last pandemic the world faced, the 2009 swine flu outbreak in Mexico, was less deadly than initially feared, mainly because many elderly people had some degree of immunity, presumably due to its similarity to other influenza viruses circulating years before.
The swine flu virus, called A/H1N1pdm09, is now fought by the influenza vaccine which is administered annually to ensure people are protected.
The new influenza strain identified in China is similar to the 2009 swine flu strain, but with some changes.
To date, it has not posed a major threat, but Professor Kin-Chow Chang and colleagues studying it say it should be monitored.
What is the danger?
The virus, which researchers call G4 EA H1N1, can grow and multiply in the cells that line the human airways.
They found evidence of recent infection in people who worked in slaughterhouses and in the swine production industry in China.
Current influenza vaccines do not seem to protect against this virus, although they can be adapted if necessary.
Kin-Chow Chang, who works at the University of Nottingham in the UK, told the BBC: “Right now we are distracted by the coronavirus and rightly so. But we should not lose sight of new potentially dangerous viruses.”
Although this new virus is not an immediate problem, he says: “We should not ignore it.”
Scientists write in the “Proceedings” magazine of the British National Academy of Sciences that measures to control the virus in pigs and closely monitor working populations must be quickly implemented.
Professor James Wood, head of the Veterinary Medicine Department at Cambridge University, said the work “comes as a stern reminder” that we are constantly at risk of pathogens and that farm animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, can be a source of pandemic viruses.
Source: G1