Researchers Reconstruct 1918 Flu Virus 321
Gnpatton writes "CNN is running a story on how researchers have recreated the gene sequence for the 1918 virus which claimed 50 million lives. The mapping for the gene sequence was found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost. From the article: 'Using a technique called reverse genetics, the Mount Sinai researchers used the genetic coding to create microscopic, virus-like strings of genes, called plasmids.'" Researchers are hoping that reconstructing a virus like this will help them to better understand similar problems. The structure was originally determined earlier this year.
additional coverage (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4308872.stm [bbc.co.uk]
and another one from ABC news, about how they in their enlightened wisdom (read fearmongering) think that the asian birdflu will result in similar problems.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Flu/story?id=1183172
i would have posted as ANON but aparently 212 minutes since i last posted a comment is not enough time to wait between comments
Re:Science has a fatal flaw (Score:4, Informative)
How would that occur, exactly, if its mortality rate less than 5 per cent (and those who recover are immune)?
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:5, Informative)
You misread it: In an experiment, published in October 2002, they were successful in creating a virus with two 1918 genes.
It does not say they recreated the original virus. The 1918 virus occured before flu vaccines had come about. As such, we currently have no vaccine against that particular strain. The researchers think that by studying the 1918 virus they can learn some information that may help with the current avian flu 5HN1.
Does the 1918 virus scare the shit out of me? Yes, just as much as the idea of 5HN1 infecting humans. But if studying the 1918 flu help combat 5HN1, I'm all for it.
Plasmids (Score:3, Informative)
Put another way, we are much more at risk from Asian Bird Flu than we are from this virus.
Incidentally, how is Avian Flu being reported in america? Here in Aus we don't hear much, even though I (and the WHO) are convinced it's the next big pandemic.
Personally I'm much more scared of avian flu than terrorists...
Regenesis (Score:4, Informative)
Hooked me for a few episodes.
Two points... (Score:5, Informative)
"Almost" doesn't cut it. And if you think the former Soviet Union (and former United States) really eliminated their last reserves of the virus, you're seriously deluded.
> Now they are reviving an old virus that was completely eradicated. This does not make sense, other than for the nobel-prize signs in the scientists eyes (which they should not get).
The 1918 pandemic strain killed off the most vulnerable portion of the population three or four generations ago. Subsequently, mutations to that strain that were less virulent than the original appeared. These less-virulent strains didn't kill their hosts as quickly (and often, didn't kill the host at all!), and turned out to be better-adapted to their environment than the original. These less-virulent strains worked their way throughout the rest of the population. The world ended up with a not-so-bad version of the flu, and a relatively high resistance in the surviving population. All in all, a lousy environment for the original or the less-virulent strains to propagate.
Don't worry about the 1918 flu getting out. First, it almost certainly won't. Second, if it does, it won't be nearly as bad as it was in 1918, largely due to the fact that anyone who was highly vulnerable to it had been ejected from the gene pool by 1920.
> I could name hundreds of things that could go wrong, and will not even start wildly speculating what would happen if 5HN1 somehow mutates with this virus.
Don't worry about an H5N1 recombination (or reassortment) with the 1918 flu. You'd need someone to be simultaneously infected with both viruses. The probability of that is vanishingly small. (As is the probability of the 1918 flu escaping and setting up a reservoir population in birds or pigs.)
Worry about a human-to-human transmissible evolution of H5N1. If the strain currently fiddling around Jakarta [recombinomics.com] is reproducing by means of human to human transmission, and if that strain is doing so via casual contact (to date, it appears that most cases from this cluster involve zoo visitors, their immediate families, and health care workers -- so we don't yet have confirmation of h2h transmission, let alone via casual contact), then worry.
If a human-to-human transmissible of H5N1 shows up, and if it's as lethal to humans as the version currently floating around Asia, you're looking at somewhere between 100M and 300M dead before a weaker variant evolves.
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:1, Informative)
It would make more sense to build a weapon out of something you're likely to find in your own backyard than incurring the expense of constructing a virus from it's constituent bases.
I used to make oligonucleotides for a living (some for PCR, others for probes etc) and it's a bitch to make things longer than a few hundred bases. Moreso if you've got to do trasnscription and trnaslation to get the ultimate product (we didn't do that).
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't comment on something when you don't understand it. Lack of understanding leads to fear, and fear to stupid descisions being made.
Leave science to scientists.
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think that the 1918 flu would be the major killer now that it was originally.
Re:Plasmids (Score:4, Informative)
But...but...from TFA:
"The plasmids then were sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction."
Re:Sick and should be forbidden... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually I think that I heard the idea that some viruses are too strong for their own good, for example Ebola. If they have 100% death rate (Ebola is close) they kill themselves -- viruses need to leave people alive to get spread or need to have very long incubation period. A virus that kills 100% of the people it infects in 1 day is less dangerous than a virus that kills 60% in 2 weeks.
Re:additional coverage (Score:4, Informative)
-Ted
Re:Are we immune ? A: Yes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:3, Informative)
While that's true for most flu seasons, the 1918 pandemic strain was unusual. A fair number of deaths occured from primary influenza infections in 1918. At first, scientists had assumed that the bacterial Haemophilus influenza was the cause of the pandemic (later implicated as one of the more common causes of bacterial meningitis in children).
After the influenza virus was discovered, many still believed that it only killed because it allowed secondary infections. As it turns out, the 1918 pandemic strain had many clinical features similar to SARS as well as influenza (bloody sputum, hemorrhagic pneumonia, overwhelming inflammatory response, and disseminated intravascular coagulation) from influenza alone. The most dangerous of the secondary infections was (and remains) Strep pneumoniae.
Poison gas had little to nothing to do with influenza deaths in 1918. The majority of influenza deaths among the American military occurred in state-side barracks before they even had a chance to be shipped to Europe.Asian Bird Flu (Score:4, Informative)
The press doesn't harp on it much, but anytime they mention it they call it the next big pandemic. National Geographic covers it in the current issue, and they've got a little presentation about it [nationalgeographic.com] on their website.
Re:Plasmids (Score:2, Informative)
They've had these sequences in plasmids for years. That doesn't make news.
They used the plasmids to make a whole bunch of RNA, transfected it into a cell line, and let the virus reassemble itself. They now have viable 1918 virus. That *is* news.
This is potentially nasty, but if it got out of the lab, it probably wouldn't be a 1918 redo. Most everyone on earth has been exposed to the currently circulating H1N1 viruses (same type as 1918), so everyone has some immunity to the old virus.
You want something to be afraid of, look at the asian bird flu. I collaborate with the flu branch at the CDC, and its what they worry about. That is the virus with the potential to cause a 1918-like pandemic.
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Informative)
1) The Virus is being reconstructed as best they can.
2) The researchers aren't even using Level 5 isolation because -- guess what -- they expect that we're all pretty much immune to the virus these days. (They'll be the first to go if they're wrong...)
Aquired immunity is not inherited (Score:3, Informative)
We're as ready as FEMA was. (Score:2, Informative)
Chances are, they have as many self-powered, automated, ventilators as they have intensive care beds, which in most community hospitals is perhaps a dozen.
If a more than a few dozen patients show up with rapidly fulminating viral pneumonia, (the main cause of death in the avian flu), they whole system is quickly overwhelmed.
Supposedly, the government has hundreds, (thousands ?) of ventilators on standby for just such an emergency (or terrorist act). Look at what happened in New Orleans recently for a live example. Hospital staff were keeping people alive with small self inflating (Ambu) bags. It takes one person to a patient, every minute of the day to keep them alive that way. That person squeezing the bag can't do much else either.
If you get it, chances are good that you're going to die.
Re:ReGenesis again? (Score:3, Informative)