Has the Avian Flu virus started to mutate?

There is growing anxiety throughout Europe following the news from British scientists that the Avian Flu virus may have started to migrate into a form deadly to humans.

In Australia, where authorities maintain a 24-hours-a-day monitoring facility, experts are said to be closely monitoring developments in Turkey, particularly after the disclosures that the virus had changed into a form that spreads to people more easily.

However a health spokeswoman stressed last night that although the bug had mutated the anticipated and dreaded human-to-human spread variation has not as yet evolved.

But worryingly samples taken from a teenage Turkish brother and sister who died after contracting the virus suggest the H5N1 strain may even have changed to a form that prefers attacking humans to birds! Unlike some earlier versions of the bug, the Turkish virus contains a mutation of an important protein on its surface that allows it to infect human cells more easily.

This spokesperson said, “We understand from the World Health Organisation that all of the people in Turkey had had close contact with infected chickens and while the virus is showing mutations, it is not unexpected because it is occurring in a part of the virus where such changes are common." So far almost twenty Turkish citizens has tested positive to the virus, the largest number anywhere outside of the Far East.

Land and People first brought this potential menace to the public’s attention over a year ago and called upon the Government to start stockpiling Tamiflu, the only drug known to increase resistance to the virus, months before they finally got off their over-paid posteriors to place the order with the Swiss producer Roche!

 

British National Party Caring For Land and People