The whole world is busy trying to a find solution for the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected more than 10 million people worldwide and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Amidst this existing health crisis, Chinese researchers have hinted at the arrival of another potential pandemic.
Scientists involving those from the Chinese universities and China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention have discovered a new strain of swine flu that has the potential to become a pandemic. According to them, the virus which they call G4 EA H1N1 is carried by pigs, but it can also infect humans. They fear that it could mutate further and may spread easily from person to person, leading to another global outbreak. As it is new, people could have little or no immunity to the virus, they said.
Noting that the new virus has "all the hallmarks" of being highly adapted to infect humans, the researchers stressed the need for close monitoring. In their paper that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists suggested that measures to control the virus in pigs, and the close monitoring of swine industry workers should be swiftly implemented.
The new flu strain found in China is believed to have genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009. Scientists say it is similar to 2009 swine flu, but with some new changes. The new virus, named G4 EA H1N1, can grow and multiply in the cells that line the human airways they said.
While it hasn't posed a big threat yet, scientists have found evidence of recent infection in people who worked in abattoirs and the swine industry in China. Antibody tests have shown that 10.4 percent of swine workers had already been infected with the virus. Nearly 4.4 percent of the general population is also believed to have been exposed to the new virus. Therefore, scientists who have been studying the new virus say it is one to keep an eye on.
Unfortunately, existing flu vaccines do not appear to protect against it. But researchers say current drugs could be adapted to work against the new virus too if needed.
For the study, the Chinese researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from pigs in slaughterhouses in 10 Chinese provinces and in a veterinary hospital from 2011 to 2018. They then isolated 179 swine flu viruses and carried out various experiments on ferrets. The G4 EA H1N1 strain was found to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses.
The researchers also observed that any immunity humans develop from exposure to seasonal flu does not provide protection from this new type of swine flu.
Although the scientists are clear that the virus has already passed from animals to humans, they haven't found evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human. And this is what the scientists are mainly worried about.
They fear that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic.
