New strain of bird flu poses serious threat to World health: Scientists

London: A new strain of bird flu that is causing a deadly outbreak among people in China is a threat to world health and should be taken seriously, scientists said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a briefing in London, experts in virology said initial studies suggest the virus has several worrisome characteristics, including two genetic mutations that make it more likely to eventually spread from human to human. “The longer the virus is unchecked in circulation, the higher the probability that this virus will start transmitting from person to person,” Colin Butte, an expert in avian viruses at Britain’s Pirbright Institute, said.
Of the 125 people infected with H7N9 so far, around 20 percent have died, approximately 20 percent have recovered and the remaining are still undergoing treatment. The infection can lead to severe pneumonia, blood poisoning and organ failure.
Recent pandemic viruses, including the H1N1 “swine flu” of 2009/2010, have been mixtures of mammal and bird flu – hybrids that are likely to be milder because mammalian flu tends to make people less severely ill than bird flu.
Scientists say it is jumping from birds – most probably chickens – to human, and there is no evidence yet of the virus passing from person to person.
Jeremy Farrar, a leading expert on infectious diseases and director of Oxford University’s research unit in Vietnam, said the age range of those infected so far stretched from toddlers to people in their late 80s – a range that appeared to confirm the virus is completely new to the human population.
“That suggests there truly is no immunity across all ages, and that as humans we have not seen this virus before,” he said. “The response has to be calm and measured, but it cannot be taken lightly,” he said.