Study: China Source of Avian Flu Virus
# 541
After last year's flap over the `Fujian-like' strain, today's news that Guangdong Province is the source of H5N1 is unlikely to garner a positive reception from Chinese officials.
This reportage from Maggie Fox.
China is source of bird flu virus, study shows
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - China's southern Guangdong Province is the source of the dangerous H5N1 avian flu virus, according to a genetic analysis of the virus published on Monday.
And Guangdong appears to be the source of renewed waves of the H5N1 strain, which has killed or forced the destruction of hundreds of millions of birds, the team at the University of California Irvine reported.
"We show that the Chinese province of Guangdong is the source of multiple H5N1 strains spreading at both regional and international scales," the researchers wrote in their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It is probably still originating there and spreading," Walter Fitch, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.
"If you can control the virus at its source, you can control it more efficiently," Fitch added in a statement.
"With a road map of where the strain has migrated, you're more likely to isolate the strain that you should be using to make the vaccine."
The idea that influenza viruses tend to originate in China is hardly new. That region of the world has been long thought to be the source of most new strains of the influenza virus.
Last year, the naming of a newly discovered strain of H5N1, the so called `fujian-like' strain, caused a diplomatic row with the Chinese.
China Denies Existence of 'Fujian-like' Bird Flu Virus
Nov 14, 2006
Virologists Guan Yi and Malik Peiris, of the University of Hong Kong, and Rob Webster of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the United States published a study in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Journal. The report indicated that in the past year, a new strain of bird flu virus, the "Fujian-like virus," has become dominant amongst poultry and has shown up in human infection cases in six Chinese provinces.
At a press conference held by China's Ministry of Agriculture on November 10, Chinese officials criticized Guan's study and claimed that Guan "quoted untrue information," "used unscientific research methods" and "made unsubstantiated speculations."
China's Ministry of Agriculture claimed that there was no new strain of bird flu virus.
After much discussion, the Chinese finally allowed that yes, there was a new strain, but it was `insulting' to call it the Fujian-like strain, and called for international naming conventions that would not put certain countries in a bad light.
The WHO agreed to be more sensitive, and is calling on officials to come up with a non-discriminatory naming convention.
So I've got to figure, Chinese officials are going to hate this latest report.
The report on the epicenter of H5N1 viruses goes on to state that new variants continue to emerge from Guangdong Province, along with some secondary breeding grounds.
"It seems to be seeding multiple outbreaks both from within China and elsewhere. That is the primary epicenter. Now there are secondary epicenters, as well, that have caught on fire," said Robert Wallace, a postdoctoral researcher who led the study.
Obviously, finding the source of these new strains could be of great value. Not only would it allow us to see, much earlier, what is coming down the pike, it might even be possible to stop a novel virus at the source.
Guangdong Province shares its Northwest border with Fujian Province, and with Hong Kong and Macao to the south. It has a population of 83 million permanent residents, but also hosts up to 30 million Chinese immigrants who reside there up to 6 months out of the year.
This so-called `floating population', with mass movements of people in and out of Guangdong each year, would make containment of any new strain difficult.
