Scientists have been slammed for publishing a recipe to create a mutated flu virus, sparking fresh concerns of another pandemic similar to Covid-19.
Experts at the Scripps Research in California took a strain of H5N1, the bird flu virus that infected cows and farm workers in Texas earlier in the year.
H5N1 is a strain of flu that originally was found in birds, but can infect livestock such as cows, as well as humans – and has already killed people.
The experts, who describe their method in a study, added mutations to the Texas H5N1 strain to ‘increase the virus’s potential for human transmission’, reports the Telegraph.
Deliberately adding mutations to the Texas H5N1 strain increased the virus’s ability to bind to human cells to ‘near-pandemic levels’.
Dr Fillipa Lentzos, a biological threats researcher at King’s College London, warned the study could ‘give people ideas’ of how to create a ‘human-made pandemic’.
It follows a conclusion from the US House of Representatives committee that the Covid-19 virus probably did leak from a Chinese lab.
Wuhan – where the virus was first detected – is home to China‘s largest SARS research lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The bird flu virus usually does not infect people, but there have been some rare human cases – some fatal. Scientists are concerned that bird flu will make the jump from a human to another human – greatly increasing chances of a pandemic
Wuhan where the coronavirus SARS‑CoV‑2 was first detected is home to China’s largest SARS research lab – the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Pictured, Wuhan, China during the early days of Covid
Dr Lentzos claims that there are ‘no major biosafety concerns’ with the lab experiment, because it used proteins of the virus, rather than the virus itself.
Therefore, there was no risk that the strain would leak from the lab and potentially create America’s answer to the Covid pandemic.
‘However, in light of current debates about risky bioresearch, the paper should have addressed biosafety and biosecurity concerns head on,’ she told the Telegraph.
‘We clearly don’t want to accidentally seed a human-made pandemic or give people ideas of how to do so… responsible science needs to engage with these concerns.
‘We should of course anyway be preparing for bovine H5N1 to jump to humans so it is not clear the research adds much in terms of actually changing biopreparedness strategies.’
There are lots of different strains of the bird flu virus, which is officially referred to as ‘Influenza A virus’.
While most of the strains don’t infect humans, H5N1 is one of the strains to have caused concern in recent years and was first detected more than a century ago.
But fresh worries were raised when a human worker at a farm in Texas caught H5N1 from infected cows in March, followed by a second human case on a farm in Michigan.
H5N1 is a strain of flu that was originally found in birds, but can infect livestock, and humans. Pictured, electron micrograph of avian influenza A H5N1 viruses (seen in gold) grown in mammal cells (green)
The US Department of Agriculture said in March that milk from dairy cows in Texas and Kansas has tested positive for bird flu. Pictured, airy cattle feed at a farm on March 31, 2017, near Vado, New Mexico.
It follows a conclusion from the US House of Representatives committee that Covid-19 probably did leak from a Chinese lab. Wuhan – where the virus was first detected – is home to China’s largest SARS research lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)
Overall, the US outbreak resulted in ‘spillover’ infections (from cows to humans) of at least 14 farm workers, a prior study reported in October.
People showed ‘mild respiratory symptoms’ or conjunctivitis, the contagious infection that makes the eyes pink, blurry and gungy, and one had to be hospitalized.
While it’s been shown to spread from animals to humans with deadly effect, the bird flu virus is not known to be transmissible from one human to another.
However, there are concerns that such a virus could quickly mutate and evolve to become more infectious and deadly for humans.
The researchers at Scripps looked at the crucial haemagglutinin protein of the flu virus, which binds to receptors on the outside of cells.
A single mutation could make the virus adept at infecting cells lining the human nose and throat, they found, meaning it would not only cause respiratory problems but be spread by coughing.
It follows revelations from the Centers for Disease Control that H5N1 has mutated to spread more easily among mammals, while adding that the overall risk to the public was low.
It’s worth noting that these mutations have not been observed in the wild, although the new study shows how small changes could have disastrous implications.
The above picture of the symptoms suffered by the dairy farmer in Texas who caught bird flu was published in a report online from CDC officials
Like all flus, the virus is spread primarily through droplets in the air which are breathed in or get into a person’s mouth, eyes or nose
What’s more, this mutation alone would not result in a virus capable of going pandemic, although what exactly is needed for this to happen is still mysterious.
Aris Katzourakis, a genomics researcher at the University of Oxford who was not involved with the study, called the findings ‘highly concerning’.
‘Each spillover to a human gives the virus a roll of the dice,’ he told New Scientist.
However, some scientists welcomed the new study – published in the journal Science – for demonstrating the risks of mutating viruses with the proteins.
‘Viruses are highly prone to mutations and this is a very well conducted study looking at the science of this,’ said Stuart Elborn, professor of medicine at Queen’s University Belfast.
‘But is not unexpected that one or two mutations result in the virus having a human specificity.’
‘This further highlights the importance of ongoing surveillance particularly of known viruses such as influenza which can jump species.’
