After an unprecedented recommendation by a government review panel to block publication, a study that shows how the avian H5N1 influenza virus could become transmissible in mammals was published in full today in the journal Nature. In December 2011, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity recommended redacting critical information from the study. The unprecedented […]
With the H5N1 bird flu virus now spreading into Western Europe, governments are at last seriously focusing on what can be done to avert a pandemic if it mutates into a strain that can be passed from human to human. Behind the scenes, scientists are scrambling for answers in the knowledge that current anti-viral stockpiles […]
While the World Health Organization nervously waits for the first confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 “bird flu” virus, researchers are ramping up their efforts to design more efficient vaccines. Molecular virologist Suresh Mittal, from Purdue University, is investigating a new way to provide broader immunity against multiple strains of the avian influenza […]
Despite suspicions of human-to-human transmission, the H5N1 strain of the avian flu virus seems, at least so far, to be restricted to birds and swine in Southeast Asia. But fears that a genetic exchange or successful mutation could make highly contagious person-to-person transmission possible has prompted some researchers to crunch the numbers on how a […]
A UK doctor writing in the British Medical Journal has warned that governments around the world must stop burying their heads in the sand over the growing threat of a global epidemic of avian flu. Dr. Nigel Higson writes that disasters like the Asian Tsunami will “pale into insignificance” when compared to the human cost […]
