
By Peter Andrews, Irish science journalist and writer based in London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in genetics.
The internet is aflutter with reports of yet another possible viral pandemic coming out of China. It’s a new strain of swine flu, but there’s not much to fear. Except, that is, fear itself, which is being cultivated by the media.
Wasn’t one enough? A new study published on Monday in the American journal PNAS has reported on a brand-new viral threat, just as we were beginning to tire of the old one. This time it is a new strain of swine flu, dubbed G4 EA H1N1, or G4 for short.
The research, carried out at the China Agricultural University in Beijing, is not exactly the PR that China needs right now. There have already been enough questions raised about their cultural practices in relation to the animal trade, wet markets, and yes, even laboratories, after SARS-CoV-2 was spawned there last winter. Given that they can surely expect international pressure for an inquest once the dust settles on coronavirus, one wonders why they have decided to release these findings at all… But credit that they have.
Nothing to fear
Unlike the coronavirus, which came to light when people started to fall ill, G4 has been deliberately hunted out by armies of scientists. From 2011 to 2018, China has been running a major study to identify and classify new strains of flu among pigs, and find out which, if any, pose a threat of spreading among humans.
Of the 179 strains discovered in that period, the majority seem isolated to pigs. But a few show potential for infecting people, as suggested by experiments in ferrets, which experience flu similarly to humans. G4 caused the most serious symptoms in ferrets, and it could also replicate itself in human cells in the lab.
There is already an extensive amount of information available on this virus, which no one had heard of before this week. Over 10% of workers in the pig industry – and up to 4.4% of the wider Chinese population – are already infected, according to antibody testing. Additionally, over 20% of pig workers aged 18–35 had antibodies, indicative of the virus adapting to humans.
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See Also:
(1) The pandemic conspiracy plot thickens
(2) Mainstream media goes all in with ‘panic porn’ over COVID-19
(3) Scientists Say New Strain of Swine Flu Virus Is Spreading to Humans in China
(4) New flu strain found in China; WHO warns ‘the worst is yet to come’