A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defences against it.
World health authorities worried openly that the strange new virus could become a global epidemic.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said tests showed that some of the victims in Mexico had died from the same new strain of swine flu that infected eight people in Texas and California.
Scientists said the virus combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before.
"We are very, very concerned," said Thomas Abraham, a CDC spokesman.
"We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human," he said. "It's all hands on deck at the moment."
The government planned to administer its remaining 500,000 vaccines from the flu season to health workers, the highest-risk group, although it is not known how effective they are on swine flu. It said it also has enough oseltamivir, the generic name of Tamiflu, to treat 1 million people, but the medicine will be strictly controlled and handed out only by doctors.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment