The gene for swine flu virus is not mutant

Author: Maggie Fox

The recent full study of the H1N1 flu virus has proven that the virus has been circulating for many years, mainly in pigs, but humans are unaware.

Researchers say pigs are clearly a high-risk source of disease for humans.

"The results of the study suggest a more global systematic survey of swine flu viruses," said Dr. Nancy Cox, Head of Flu at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. by phone.

Cox's report with the international research group in Science suggests that the virus "may have circulated in the herd of pigs somewhere in the world that humans have not discovered."

The researchers confirmed a strange association between the swine flu, bird flu and human flu genes in the H1N1 virus, which infected more than 11,000 people in 42 countries, and claimed the lives of 86 people. up to now. WHO is ready to declare the status of the disease at the highest level.

The researchers say it appears that other types of influenza viruses are also present in pigs, but are not yet detected. They have sequenced the genetic code of 70 different samples from the US and Mexico of this new virus.

"We can really find out where each gene comes from," Cox said.

The new virus is a combination of combinations - it includes a 1998 triple reassortant virus that includes elements of swine flu virus, bird flu and human flu.

It also includes a number of components from Eurasian flu strains, which have a direct link to the test from a Hong Kong patient infected with swine flu in 1999.

Swine flu virus (Photo: thuocbietduoc.com.vn)

THE MAKING PROGRESS

How this new strain formed so far is still a secret, researchers say.

"Some of the scripts were set up, including the theory of recombination in Asia or the Americas and the creation of the new H1N1 virus," they wrote.

There is also a theory that another animal has acted as an intermediary, only infecting pathogens, not developing disease. Cox noted that researchers have only recently discovered that, for example, the entire family of cats, from wild tigers to domestic cats, can be infected with the H5N1 bird flu.

"We learned that veterinary researchers at the US Department of Agriculture as well as many other parts of the world are now investigating whether frozen samples from chickens and other animals reveal a link. Someone is forgotten or not, " Cox said.

"Once we have identified the source, we will take measures to ensure that the virus will not reappear in another form," she said.

Researchers say they do not know how the virus is able to infect humans. There are no common mutations here that allow viruses on animals to jump to humans and then easily spread from one person to another.

Influenza experts begin to worry about the emergence of a virus that can move straight from animals to humans. Usually, they do not transfer to another person - for example, the H5N1 bird flu virus with 429 infections and 262 deaths is almost non-human.

But in the last three flu epidemics - in 1918, 1957 and 1968 - all began with a new bird flu virus infecting humans.

So far the H1N1 flu virus samples have not shown any mutations - samples of patients in Mexico as well as samples from the United States and other countries.

This "shows the fact that this virus has probably infected people through a particular case," Cox said. Or if more than one person has been infected directly from an animal or a source, they must have been infected with identical genetic viruses.