- Scientists are proposing to recreate the lethal 1918
flu virus in the laboratory, a move that has divided the academic community.
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- Those in favour of rebuilding the virus, which killed
40m people worldwide in a single year, argue that it would provide vital
information that could prevent a similar catastrophe. They fear that, without
such research, the world is at risk of the recurrence of an equally virulent
strain, which could occur at any time.
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- Scientists have already tried to understand why the 1918
virus, called Spanish flu, proved so lethal by digging up the bodies of
dozens of victims deep-frozen in permafrost in Alaska and northern Norway.
This exercise, however, has yielded only fragments of its eight genes.
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- Now many researchers believe the only way to unravel
the secret of its virulence is to reconstruct it and observe how the various
elements interact to make it "super-virulent". America's prestigious
National Institutes of Health (NIH), which oversees the nation's medical
research establishment, is planning an international conference to draw
up an agreement on how such a virus should be handled.
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- The rules - also covering who has access - would be similar
to the international agreement for the last existing samples of the smallpox
virus, now held in only two laboratories.
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- Robert Webster, a leading expert on flu in Memphis, Tennessee,
wants to synthesise the virus. He is to discuss plans with NIH tomorrow.
"We need guidelines on what should and should not be done. It is theoretically
possible to make any flu virus and some of these could be more lethal than
the 1918 one."
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- Daniel Lavanchy, co-ordinator of epidemic disease control
at the World Health Organisation in Geneva, is opposed to laboratory-made
flu viruses, and questions whether it would be possible.
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- However, he is anxious about the need to understand the
constantly mutating virus before it reappears in a new epidemic, or is
seized upon as a weapon of bioterrorism.
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