Re: News: Pigs at risk from people as new flu spreads.

On Jul 12, 10:44 am, Devils Advocaat <mankyg...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 12 July, 15:39, Ye Old One <use...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





Pigs at risk from people as new flu spreads
Thu Jul 9, 6:31 pm ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090709/sc_nm/us_flu_pigs_1

LONDON (Reuters) – There is a growing risk that pigs will catch the
new H1N1 flu strain -- commonly known as swine flu -- from humans,
German researchers said on Thursday.

Widespread transmission from people to pigs could mix up virus strains
further, leading to unpredictable changes in the disease.

There have already been a handful of suspected cases of humans passing
the current pandemic H1N1 virus to swine. The latest German research
confirms it is infectious to pigs and can spread rapidly.

Thomas Vahlenkamp and colleagues from the Friedrich Loeffler
Institute, Germany's national research center for animal health,
experimentally infected five pigs with the new flu.

Four days later, the virus had spread to three uninfected pigs housed
with them and all the pigs showed clinical signs of disease, they
reported in the Journal of General Virology.

"With the increasing numbers of human infections, a spill-over of this
human virus to pigs is becoming more likely," Vahlenkamp said.

"The prevention of human-to-pig transmissions should have a high
priority in order to avoid involvement of pigs in the epidemiology of
this pandemic."

Encouragingly, though, while the virus spread quickly among the pigs,
it did not spread to five chickens housed with them.

The World Health Organization declared a pandemic last month following
the spread of the new flu virus, which mixes swine, avian and human
elements. It has killed more than 400 people globally and likely now
infects millions.

--
Bob.

If pigs are now at risk of contracting this virus from humans, will
they be referring to it as Man Flu? :P-

I just returned from Canada on a business trip. The Canadians handed
out pamphlets at customs and they call the flu "Human Swine flu."
They have no disclaimer that it doesn't just infect human swine.

They were having some type of Genomic evolutionary conference in the
Montreal Hotel that I stayed at and I saw Sydney Brenner in the
lobby. He passed through while I was in the dining area. A good
portion of my PhD thesis was on C. elegans, and I haven't had the
chance to see the guy in person.

Ron Okimoto

.

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