Researchers say the pig flu can transmit from animals to humans
Chinese researchers are alerting the medical community to a new strain of the flu, which pigs carry and has the potential to cause another global outbreak.
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Chinese researchers are alerting the medical community to a new strain of the flu, which pigs carry and has the potential to cause another global outbreak.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have found the new virus — dubbed G4 EA H1N1 — which they believe can easily transmit from animals to humans.
Australian experts said the virus was a variant of the long-running “H1N1” flu category and highly unlikely to cause a global outbreak anywhere near the scale of COVID-19.
Chinese researchers from the nation’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention published the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and found the new strain had “all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans”.
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The findings are based on 30,000 nasal swabs from pigs in slaughterhouses across 10 provinces and in a veterinary hospital taken between 2011 and 2018.
Microbiologist Peter Collignon said the H1N1 virus category had been around for about 30 years and this new virus was a variation of that.
“I don’t think we need to take any undue extra precaution at the moment. It’s a H1N1 so it’s not that new,” Prof Collignon said.
“We’ve had that circulating for 30 years. The swine flu in 2009 was new but looking back it’s mortality rate was not much bigger than the ordinary flu.
“We need to know this is happening but there is no reason to panic. Compared to COVID, this is nothing. I think there is a very low probability of matching up to anywhere near COVID.”
Prof Collignon said the current influenza vaccine may provide partial protection to the new strain.