WHO announces the study of variant H5N1 avian influenza virus

After months of controversy because of concerns about biosecurity, the World Health Organization (WHO) has decided to allow the publication of a controversial study on the variant of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in response to concern. the mind of the public.

This deadly virus is still a big problem in many countries, from Indonesia to Egypt. Now, scientists from the US and the Netherlands have created variants of the H5N1 avian influenza virus that can spread more easily from person to person.

When the H5N1 virus variant spreads from person to person, more than 60% of infected people will die. Thus, this variant of the virus becomes one of the most dangerous strains of influenza discovered so far.

About 600 people have been infected with the bird flu
around the world and half of them died.

According to Dr. Grahm Burgess of James Cook University, the results of the study are extremely important for scientists to develop vaccines, diagnostic tests and antiviral drugs that can be used in the event of a out of pandemic H5N1.

But experts have called for the details of this work to be kept secret. Biosecurity experts fear the variant of the virus that scientists in the Netherlands and the United States can break out of the laboratory, spread into the community or fall into the wrong hands.

The H5N1 virus was first discovered in 1997 in Hong Kong and spread primarily among poultry in many Asian countries. However, so far, this virus still exists in a form that is difficult to infect humans.

Since 2003, 600 people worldwide have been infected with this virus and about half of them have died.

The WHO published the study in the midst of a raging bird flu in many Asian countries.

Bird flu has killed 10 people in Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Egypt since December 2011.

Since 2003, Vietnam has 121 cases of influenza A / H5N1 cases recorded in humans, of which 61 deaths, second only to Indonesia.