New swine flu in China bears all hallmarks of a pandemic
in China have identified a variant of the swine flu virus that has the potential to develop into a human pandemic. The team led by George Gao from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing reported its findings Monday in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.”
The team wrote that the variant of the H1N1 influenza virus they identified had genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a swine flu pandemic in 2009. The new virus variant genotype 4 Eurasian avian-like H1N1 virus, which has been predominant among pigs since 2016, has “all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans”, the authors of the study stressed.
The new strain of G4 has proved to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and creating more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses. Moreover, the authors of the study identified that
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immunity humans gain during seasonal flu doesn’t provide protection from G4. Blood tests showed that 10.4% of swine workers had already been infected. About 4.4% of the general population also appeared to have been exposed. About 1 in 10 of 338 pig farm workers examined had antibodies against the pathogen in their blood, leading the team to conclude that people could be infected in principle.
Researchers also found that the virus can pass from animals to humans, but it’s unknown if it can be passed from human to human.
Meanwhile, China’s foreign ministry downplayed the fears, saying “The G4 virus mentioned in the relevant report is a subtype of the H1N1 virus.”
“Experts have concluded that the sample size of the report is small and not representative,” said spokesman Zhao Lijian on Wednesday. He added that “relevant departments and experts” will continue to step up monitoring of the disease.