In 1918, too, humans got virus from birds

“This is huge, huge, huge,” said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospital. “I can’t think of anything bigger in virology for years.”

The findings, the scientists say, reveal a small number of genetic changes that may explain why this virus was so lethal. They also confirm the legitimacy of worries about the H5N1 viruses in Asia.

The bird flu viruses now prevalent share crucial genetic changes that occurred in the 1918 flu, the scientists said. They suspect that with the 1918 flu, changes in just 25 to 30 out of about 4,400 amino acids in the viral proteins turned the virus into a killer.

Since 1997, bird flocks in 11 countries have been decimated by flu outbreaks. So far nearly all the people infected—more than 100, including more than 60 who died—contracted the sickness directly from birds. However, there has been little transmission between people.

In contrast, the 1918 virus, which killed 50 million people world-wide, was highly infectious. The 1918 virus also acts very differently from ordinary human flu viruses, infecting cells that would normally be impervious to flu and, in mice, turning lethal, which human flu viruses are not.

The publication of the research raised concerns about whether scientists should resurrect a killer that vanished from the earth nearly a century ago.

Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers, said he had serious concerns about the findings. “There is a risk verging on inevitability, of accidental release of the virus; there is also a risk of its deliberate release,” he said. And the 1918 flu virus, he added, “is perhaps the most effective bioweapons agent ever known”. —NYT

“Spanish Flu” resurrecting the killer
Scientists who reconstructed the 1918 “Spanish flu” virus that killed 50 million people warn the deadly pandemic could happen again

HOW IT WAS DONE

• Genome information sequenced from a victim buried in the Alaskan permafrost in 1918

• Researchers create microscopic virus-like gene-strings called plasmids

• At Centres for Disease Control, plasmids inserted inside kidney cells

• Scientists identified virus proteins essential for the development of severe lung disease

• Virus’ neuraminidase, a critical protein, was mutated so it could replicate under unusual conditions

• Bird-flu like characteristics confirmed when injected into bird eggs which it killed