Survival Food - Freeze Dried & MRE

While much attention has been paid to H5N1 and to a lesser extent H7 avian flu viruses the potential is also real for H9N2.

This is according to a research article (Replication and Transmission of H9N2 Influenza Viruses in Ferrets: Evaluation of Pandemic Potential) published on the website PloS One.

Per a related article in Science News one of the authors of the research article, Daniel Perez is quoted;

“The H9 may be a silent virus that doesn’t get noticed until it’s too late,” says Daniel Perez, a virologist at the University of Maryland, College Park.

A key finding in the article that raises concerns is that of an avian-human reassortant virus;

Unlike the H5N1 avian-human reassortant viruses that lack transmissibility in the ferret model [37], our H9N2 avian-human reassortant virus replicated in ferrets more efficiently than the parental H9N2 virus.

This is important as 2 previous flu pandemics arose from reaasortant viruses (the 1918 pandemic did not).

This is according the article titled Lack of transmission of H5N1 avian–human reassortant influenza viruses in a ferret model;

The pandemics of 1957 and 1968 were caused by avian–human reassortant influenza viruses that had acquired human virus-like receptor binding properties.

The 1918 H1N1 virus likely derived all eight genes from an avian virus.

More information can also be found in this Science Daily article Pandemic Potential Of H9N2 Avian Influenza Viruses.

What does this all mean?

1) The threat of a pandemic is just as likely now or anytime as it was a few years ago during the H5N1 scare.

2) Hugging a ferret that just escaped from a research lab is a bad idea, but you don’t have to worry if it sneezes.

I found these interview comments by Michael Leavitt, US Secretary of Health and Human Services on the impact of a severe pandemic flu.