Dutch scientists create highly-contagious airborne strain of bird flu

EUROPEAN scientists have created a
highly-contagious and deadly airborne strain of bird flu, potentially
capable of killing millions.

The mutated form of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza was created
by a Dutch team of scientists led by Ron Fouchier, of Rotterdam's
Erasmus Medical Centre, The Independent newspaper has reported, adding
that the researchers are now hoping to publish the details of how they
developed the new strain.

The new virus differs from H5N1 - which
is only known to be transmitted between humans who have very close
contact with each other - because it can be transmitted through the air
in coughs and sneezes.

Fouchier, who declined to answer The Independent's questions, said in a statement that it only took a small number of mutations to change the avian flu virus.

"We have discovered that this is indeed possible, and more easily than
previously thought. In the laboratory, it was possible to change H5N1
into an aerosol-transmissible virus that can easily be rapidly spread
through the air," he said.

The creation of the new virus is causing alarm bells to ring within
the US government's National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a
body which is currently analyzing how much of the scientists'
information should be allowed to be published - given the inherent risks
of having the information fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue states.

"The fear is that if you create something this deadly and
it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world
could be massive," a senior US government adviser told The Independent.
Scientists, too, are questioning whether the science should ever have been performed in the first place.

"There are people who say that the work should never have been done, or if it
was done it should have been done in a setting where the information
could be better controlled," a source close to the US biosecurity board
told the newspaper.

"With influenza now it is possible to reverse
engineer the virus. It's pretty common technology in many parts of the
world. With the genomic sequence, you can reconstruct it. That's where
the information is dangerous."

Source

oops, this was already posted last week