WHO Says New H1N1 Virus Did Not Come From A Lab

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Main Category: Swine Flu
Also Included In: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses;  Public Health;  Genetics
Article Date: 15 May 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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The World Health Organization (WHO) have refuted the suggestion made by Australian virologist Adrian Gibbs that the new A/H1N1 influenza virus that has infected over 6,000 people around the world was accidentally made in a lab and said that the evidence shows it is a naturally occurring virus.

Gibbs' hypothesis grabbed the world headlines this week after he submitted a paper to the WHO detailing his analysis of publicly available gene sequencing information about the virus. Gibbs, 75-year old retired virologist with 40 years experience, worked in the early development of antivirals, and is described by the WHO as a "credible scientist".

WHO's Assistant Director-General ad Interim for Health Security and Environment Dr Keiji Fukuda said in an update press briefing yesterday, Thursday, that they were contacted at the weekend by a scientist who had analysed the gene sequences from the new A/H1N1 virus and had proposed that the versions that were circulating were from a lab derived strain.

While not referring to the scientist by name, he stressed that this was not a scientist who was working with the influenza viruses but someone who was able to go to the WHO databases and see the gene sequences for himself and do his own analysis.

"Because of the credible nature of the hypothesis, and because of the credible nature of the scientist, we took this very seriously," said Fukuda.

WHO contacted their collaborating centres located in 5 cities around the world and asked their scientists to look at the paper. And because the virus is swine related, they also contacted experts from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health).

There ensued a large discussion between the human flu virologists and the animal flu virologists, said Fukuda but the hypothesis that the scientist had proposed did not "stand up to scrutiny", adding that "the evidence suggests this is a naturally occurring virus and not a laboratory derived virus".

Fukuda said he was bringing this up in the update briefing because this is a good example of what happens when you make information publicy available.

A scientist who is not involved in the current investigation is able to look at the information from an independent perspective, and this then causes the scientists who are involved to re-examine the same data, he explained.

Fukuda said it was a "nice example" of how science should happen, especially with such a critical public health issue, implying that by making the scientific information public, any credible scientist with a credible argument can bring fresh insights to the table, and hopefully this way the good ideas that might potentially be overlooked in a "closed" information process don't get missed.

Fukuda said "hopefully we will see this process applied over and over again in additional investigations in additional outbreaks as they come up".

Returning to the subject of the daily briefing, Fukuda said the WHO pandemic alert was still at phase 5, and that outside of North America, confirmed cases continue to be linked to travellers as opposed to transmission from within the community.

It is generally assumed that the WHO may move to Phase 6 (full blown global pandemic is under way) if these other countries start showing community level outbreaks not related to travellers.

WHO's latest figures show that as of 06:00 GMT on 14 May, 33 countries have officially reported 6,497 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection, with the vast majority in the US (3,352) and Mexico (2,446).

The confirmed cases include 67 deaths, 60 in Mexico, 3 in the US, 1 in Canada (where they have reported 389 lab confirmed cases) and 1 in Costa Rica (where they have reported 8 lab confirmed cases).

There have been no cases reported from Africa, and apart from Israel, where there have been 7 confirmed cases, none from the Middle East either.

Source:WHO.

• See our Map Of H1N1 Outbreaks.
• See our Mexico Swine Flu Blog.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today