{"id":738,"date":"2009-07-02T10:57:43","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T09:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=738"},"modified":"2009-07-23T12:23:54","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T11:23:54","slug":"tom-nolan-was-h1n1-leaked-from-a-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/07\/02\/tom-nolan-was-h1n1-leaked-from-a-laboratory\/","title":{"rendered":"Was H1N1 leaked from a laboratory?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"391 cases of H1N1 were confirmed in the UK yesterday bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 6929. In Argentina, the state of Buenos Aires has declared<\/a> a health emergency, with schools closing for their winter breaks early – the city’s mayor has called for families not to “treat this as extra holidays for the kids” and more of a “time for the children to stay at home as much as possible”. Meanwhile Australia now has 4568 confirmed\u00a0 cases (198 more yesterday) and 9 deaths.<\/a><\/p>\n

Swine flu leak hits the headlines<\/strong>
\nThe Independent <\/em>and the Daily Mail<\/em> are worried that swine flu might be a man-made disaster. The Mail<\/em> says this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The swine flu pandemic may have been caused by an accidental leak from a laboratory three decades ago, scientists have claimed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I knew it! Tell me more…<\/p>\n

An investigation into the genetic make-up of flu viruses claims the pandemic may not have occurred, had it not been for the accidental release of the same strain of influenza virus from a research lab in 1977.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does that mean it’s been leaking for 32 years?<\/p>\n

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine<\/em> said: “Careful study of the genetic origin of the (1977) virus showed that it was closely related to a 1950 strain, but dissimilar to influenza ‘A’ (H1N1) strains from both 1947 and 1957.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This finding suggested that the 1977 outbreak strain has been preserved since 1950. The re-emergence was probably an accidental release from a laboratory source.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ok, but what’s that got to do with the current pandemic? I’ve read the article (and the one in the Independent<\/em><\/a> several times now and can’t find the answer. I’d better move on though, or I’ll be accused of having a “lofty attitude<\/a>” towards media health coverage.<\/p>\n

The NEJM article<\/a> on which this claim is based is well worth a read. It gives a comprehensive and fascinating history of Influenza A (H1N1) viruses. What they really say about the source of the current outbreak is less of a headline grabber, but just as interesting:<\/p>\n

Although the immediate genetic event that led to the emergence of the new pandemic threat was a reassortment between two influenza A (H1N1) swine viruses, these two viruses were actually the products of at least four independent avian-to-mammalian cross-species transmissions, with at least four previous reassortments of gene segments among avian, human, and swine-adapted viruses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you prefer your theories more conspiratorial though, try this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tom Nolan<\/strong> is the clinical community editor of doc2doc, the BMJ\u2019s professional networking community.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

391 cases of H1N1 were confirmed in the UK yesterday bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 6929. In Argentina, the state of Buenos Aires has declared a health emergency, with schools closing for their winter breaks early – the city’s mayor has called for families not to “treat this as extra holidays for […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}