Posts Tagged ‘supervirus’

Science| Special Issue: H5N1 [exploring the “supervirus” controversy]

29 June, 2012

See on Scoop.it – Virology News

“Introduction
The publication in this issue of these research papers on the airborne tranimssion [sic] of H5N1 marks the end of 8 months of controversy over whether some of the data, now freely accessible, should be withheld in the public interest.”

 

I think this is an important landmark in the so-called “dual use” debate: that is, the propensity of bodies in the US to attempt to regulate the release of information that MAY be usable in the making of bioweapons, or be usable in bioterror attacks.

 

Let us diffidently point out at this juncture that it is only really the superpowers who are definitively known in recent years to have had bioweapons programmes – apart from apartheid-era South Africa, that is! – and that damn nearly ANYTHING published on transmission or mechanisms of pathogenicity of human or animal pathogens (or even plant, for that matter) could be termed “dual use” if someone wanted to – and censored as a result.

 

It is also – as I tire of pointing out – possible to PROTECT against H5NX viruses using conventional vaccines right now – and the new universal flu vaccines coming on stream will almost certainly make this even more feasible.

 

The fact is that H5N1 flu is an ever-present threat to people living in Egypt, Indonesia, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand and China – WITHOUT being weaponised.  It is no more than a notional threat to the US or Europe – and keeping information that could help in understanding how or how soon the virus could mutate to pandemicity out of people’s hands, is simply stupid. 

See on www.sciencemag.org

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Posted in General Virology, Influenza viruses, Vaccines: General | Leave a Comment »

How Seanan McGuire Perfected Her Fictional Zombie Virus

27 June, 2012

See on Scoop.it – Virology News

When Seanan McGuire set out to write her Newsflesh trilogy, she went to some extreme lengths to make her zombie virus as realistic as possible….

 

OK, ONE more on zombie apocalyspes (thanks @gussilber)!  Except she didn’t: a quote-

“when those two viruses met, they had babies, and what you got was a shifting-antigen flu that does not leave the body under any circumstances but is capable of turning into something that converts human tissue into more of the virus. And that’s how we got Kellis-Amberlee, which makes zombies” – don’t make it for me.  Human tissue turning into viruses = bloody slime, NOT walking corpses!  Rabies: now THERE’S yer zombie virus!

See on www.wired.com

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Posted in Evolution, General Virology, Viruses | Leave a Comment »

Five Mutations Make H5N1 Airborne | The Scientist

23 June, 2012

See on Scoop.it – Virology News

“After more than 6 months of heated discussion, the second group that succeeded in making the H5N1 avian flu transmissible between ferrets, considered a good model for human transmission, has published its results. The paper, which came out today (June 21) in Science, demonstrates that only five mutations are needed to confer this aerosol transmissibility among mammals, and that re-assortment between different types of viruses—a technique used by the other group, which published its results last month in Nature—is not necessary.

…

Said Fouchier in a press conference “We both find … loss of glycosylation at the tip of the HA molecule, and this loss of glycosylation seems to increase the receptor binding specificity of the HA”. And though not all the mutations identified in the two studies match, “the mutations that are not identical still have a similar phenotypic trait,” he added.”

 

So this is what all the fuss was about?  This is what the NSABB did not want everyone to know?  How could they POSSIBLY think that the international virology and infectious disease community should be kept in the dark about this?  What this work has done has pointed the way along a path that will lead us to understand why and how influenza viruses change in order to more effectively get transmitted when they switch hosts – which is a good thing, surely.

And yet all they see is bioterrorism.

See on the-scientist.com

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Posted in Evolution, General Virology, Influenza viruses, Vaccines: General, Viruses | Leave a Comment »

Avian flu viruses which are transmissible between humans could evolve in nature

23 June, 2012

See on Scoop.it – Virology News

It might be possible for human-to-human airborne transmissible avian H5N1 influenza viruses to evolve in nature, new research has found.

The findings, from research led by Professor Derek Smith and Dr Colin Russell at the University of Cambridge, were published June 22 in the journal Science.
Currently, avian H5N1 influenza, also known as bird flu, can be transmitted from birds to humans, but not (or only very rarely) from human to human. However, two recent papers by Herfst, Fouchier and colleagues in Science and Imai, Kawaoka and colleagues in Nature reveal that potentially with as few as five mutations (amino acid substitutions), or four mutations plus reassortment, avian H5N1 can become airborne transmissible between mammals, and thus potentially among humans. However, until now, it was not known whether these mutations might evolve in nature.
The Cambridge researchers first analysed all of the surveillance data available on avian H5N1 influenza viruses from the last 15 years, focusing on birds and humans. They discovered that two of the five mutations seen in the experimental viruses (from the Fouchier and Kawaoka labs) had occurred in numerous existing avian flu strains. Additionally, they found that a number of the viruses had both of the mutations.
Colin Russell, Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, said: “Viruses that have two of these mutations are already common in birds, meaning that there are viruses that might have to acquire only three additional mutations in a human to become airborne transmissible. The next key question is ‘is three a lot, or a little?’ “

 

So: was it a good idea to publish those two papers on mutating H5N1 viruses, or not?  Given that as I and many other more famous people pointed out, if you don’t know what makes the viruses mammal-to-mammal transmissible, you don’t know what to look for – and now we do, and look what they found.  This story will run, and run, and run – so we really, really should include an H5 consensus HA in seasonal flu vaccines!!

See on www.sciencedaily.com

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Posted in Evolution, General Virology, Influenza viruses, Vaccines: General, Viruses | Leave a Comment »