Originally published March 4 2005
The U.S. is unprepared for bioterrorism; Avian Flu epidemic cited
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The recent Avian Flu infections were cited as a near miss for the WHO and other government agencies. Officials agree that the U.S. is not prepared for an Avian Flu outbreak. Research and tests have been ongoing since the first infection and so far nothing has been discovered.
As more and more announcements on the looming flu pandemic hit the news services and the public realizes that pandemic preparedness in 2005 is not much better than it was in 1918, the issue of bioterrorism preparedness is again being raised.
The bird / human flu situation in South Korea is being cited as a "scary near miss" to show how unprepared the US is for bioterrorism.
However, the characterization of the WSN/33 situation in pigs on farms in South Korea is clearly not in the "near miss" category at this time.
They were deposited at GenBank on Oct 24, 2004 and were publicly available at the end of November.
It is now 2 1/2 months later and the location and existence of the viruses is unresolved.
The Korean lab that isolated the viruses, and deposited the WSN/33 sequences, says the sequences are in many pigs on many farms in Korea.
The human portions of the Korean swine sequences at the databases are clearly WSN/33 related and present in reassortants, which have human and avian influenza genes as well as recombined genes.
South Korea is calling the sequences a lab error and claiming that the WSN/33 sequences exist only in cyberspace, and the sequences they generated point to yet another virus as the source of the human sequences.
Recent data of 2003 isolates shows extreme genetic instability in South Korean isolates.
Since South Korea is saying that there are no WSN/33 sequences in pigs and the data are lab errors, the source of these swine sequences is not being investigated.
Thus, the existence of the sequences in swine has not been resolved for four months after they were placed on deposit at Genbank.
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