Swine Flu Strain with Pandemic Probability Discovered in China

Just when it seems like things could not get any worse, another health crisis has arisen after new research found that "Chinese pigs" are becoming more and more infected with "a strain of influenza" that has the possibility of jumping to humans.

According to influenza investigator, Robert Webster who is also a St. Jude Children's Research Hospital retiree, "a guessing game" if this strain is going to transform to spread between humans, which has not happened yet readily.

It is not known though if a pandemic is occurring until it occurs, said Webster, explicitly noting that China has the most significant population of pigs in the entire world.

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A Process Called 'Reassortment'

The said finding said, when numerous "strains of influenza viruses infect the same pig," they can simply exchange genes. This process is called "reassortment." 

This new research, which concentrates on the influenza virus entitled, "G4" came out early today in the National Academy of Sciences.

The infection, according to the study, is a distinctive combination of three lineages like first, "similar of strains" discovered in Asian and European birds; the second is the H1N1 strain, causing the pandemic in 2009; and the third, and H1N1 in North America with genes that came from human, avian and pig influenza infections.

Furthermore, the G4 variant is particularly alarming as its core, the research said, "Is an avian virus to which humans do not have immunity; with a little mammalian strains combined with it."

According to the University of Sydney evolutionary biologist Edward Holmes, who studies pathogens, as well, "From the data presented, it seems that" this is a swine flu infection poised to develop in humans. He added that the situation clearly needs some close monitoring.

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Probable Pandemic Flu Strains

As part of the project to determine likely pandemic flu strains, a team which China Agricultural University's Liu Jinhua led, assessed almost "30,000 nasal swabs" they took from pigs at slaughterhouses in 10 different provinces of China, and 100 swabs more from pigs that have respiratory symptoms found at the veterinary teaching hospital of the school.

The collected swabs from 2011 to 2018 generated more than 170 "swine flu viruses" from which most of them were identified as "G4." 

The new research provides but a tiny preview into the swine flu strains in China with about 500 pigs. And while there's a perception that G4's predominance in the researcher's assessment is such an interesting result, it is challenging to determine if its contagion is an increased problem offering a similar sample size.

Influenza viruses often jump from pigs to humans. However, most of them do not transfer between humans. Two incidences of G4 contagions of humans have been recorded, and both were considered as "dead-end infections" that did not transfer to other humans.

Evolutionary biologist, Martha Nelson, from the US National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center, the probability of this specific variant to lead to a pandemic is low. Nelson is studying "pig influenza viruses in the US, including their spread to humans.

Despite the said findings, Nelson noted that no one knew about the strain of the pandemic H1N1, which transmits from pigs to humans, until the first cases in people developed in 2009.

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