Devastating bird flu pandemic one step away - expert
15:39 | 07/ 03/ 2006
MOSCOW, March 7 (RIA Novosti) - The world is one step away from a bird flu pandemic that cannot be averted by quarantine or vaccination, a Russian expert said Tuesday.
"One amino-acid replacement in the genome remains to make the virus transferable from human to human," said Dmitry Lvov, the director of a virology research institute at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
Lvov said the pandemic virus could strike at any moment, and would most likely come from China, leading to tens of millions of human deaths, or one third of the global population. He added quarantine measures could delay the pandemic for a few days but not prevent it, and that vaccination would not stop people getting sick.
"A good vaccine will only save [people] from death and complications, but not from the illness itself," he said.
15:39 | 07/ 03/ 2006
MOSCOW, March 7 (RIA Novosti) - The world is one step away from a bird flu pandemic that cannot be averted by quarantine or vaccination, a Russian expert said Tuesday.
"One amino-acid replacement in the genome remains to make the virus transferable from human to human," said Dmitry Lvov, the director of a virology research institute at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
Lvov said the pandemic virus could strike at any moment, and would most likely come from China, leading to tens of millions of human deaths, or one third of the global population. He added quarantine measures could delay the pandemic for a few days but not prevent it, and that vaccination would not stop people getting sick.
"A good vaccine will only save [people] from death and complications, but not from the illness itself," he said.
posted by Faustus and FrankenKitty at 8:23 AM
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