New strain which virologists say could be resistant to vaccines, was first isolated in Fujian province last year
HONG KONG: A new strain of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, which has spread out from southern China to South East Asia, has revived fears of a pandemic, and refocused attention on the lack of transparency among Chinese officials about the disease in China.
The new strain, which virologists say may have become resistant to vaccines, was first isolated in Fujian province in March 2005, and has surfaced in several provinces in China since October 2005, and elsewhere in the South East Asian region, including Hong Kong, Laos Thailand and Malaysia.
“It is likely that this variant has already initiated a third wave of transmission throughout Southeast Asia and may spread further in Eurasia,” according to three researchers who have published an article on the “Fujian-like virus” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a scientific journal.
The researchers — University of Hong Kong virologists Guan Yi and Malik Peiris, and US-based Robert Webster — said that the controls now in place were probably “ineffective” in dealing with H5N1's evolutions. The scientists had collected bird faecal samples from poultry markets in six provinces from July 2005 to June 2006; about 1,300 of these samples tested positive for H5N1.
However, in other samples, collected from October 2005, they found that the Fujian strain had become predominant. A research team member said one reason for the predominance may be that it has remained immune to bird flu vaccines.
