The H7N9 Reassortment – Credit Eurosurveillance
# 7151
Martin Enserink - contributing editor and writer for Science magazine – together with science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt, have produced a terrific overview of the research plans that laboratories around the world have for using samples of the H7N9 virus.
Last Friday the CDC announced that they had received virus samples from China (see CDC Update On H7N9 – April 12th) and were already working on creating a candidate vaccine, diagnostic tests, and serological assay tests.
But there is much we don’t know about this virus, including its pathogenicity and transmissibility in mammals. A top priority is to test H7N9 on a variety of lab animals, including ferrets and cynomolgus macaques.
In the following article we learn how small virus samples are grown into useful quantities, and the plans that scientists - including Ron Fouchier at Erasmus MC – have for this enigmatic avian flu virus.
Chinese H7N9 Virus Making Its Way to Labs Around the World
by Kai Kupferschmidt and Martin Enserink, With reporting by Dennis Normile on 16 April 2013, 5:30 PM |
Research such as described above will not only increase our knowledge of the threat this virus may pose today, but also give us an idea of its potential for evolving into a bigger threat tomorrow.
Highly recommended.
