Scientists in Vietnam, where bird flu has killed 42 people, said the deadly H5N1 influenza virus had mutated into a more dangerous form that could breed more effectively in mammals, state media reported yesterday.
Online newspaper Vnexpress quoted Cao Bao Van, director of the Molecule Biology Department of the Pasteur Institute, Vietnam's center of bird flu research, as saying that the decoding of 24 samples of the virus taken from poultry and humans showed significant antigen variation.
An antigen is any foreign substance that stimulates the body's immune system to produce antibodies.
Van said the study had showed an antigenic shift involving major antigenic changes of the influenza surface proteins, the HA and NA molecules. These changes can result in the appearance of pandemic viruses.
Van said the study had also found a mutation of the PB2 gene in a virus sample from a patient in Dong Thap, southern Vietnam, who died earlier this year. The mutation allows more effective breeding of the virus in mammals.
The function of the PB2 gene is not completely understood, but scientists believe it codes for an enzyme that helps force the host cell's molecular machinery to make more viruses.
While the study came to no conclusion on the virus' ability to move easily between people, it said that the virus had developed resistance to anti-flu agents Amatadine and Rimantadine.
Vietnam, where the H5N1 virus has hit nine of the country's 64 provinces since returning early last month, has recorded 92 cases of human bird flu infection and 42 deaths.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is investigating whether a 20-year-old woman who lived near a flock of sick chickens died from bird flu after falling ill with symptoms of the disease, a hospital spokesman said yesterday.
The suspected death occurred ahead of today's visit by a top EU health official, Markos Kyprianou, who will discuss ways to boost the country's fight against the virus.
An Indonesian lab will conduct tests today to determine whether the young woman who died late on Saturday after falling ill with a high fever and breathing difficulties had the disease, said Ilham Patu, a spokesman for Jakarta's infectious diseases hospital.
Blood and swab samples would also be sent to a Hong Kong laboratory for further testing, he said, noting that the woman's case raised alarm bells because her neighbors had backyard chickens that suddenly died.
Most people who have died or been sickened by bird flu had contact with sick birds. International health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmissible between people and spark a global pandemic.
Kyprianou, the EU commissioner for health and consumer protection, will focus on strengthening Indonesia's surveillance and control capabilities during his two-day visit, which will wrap up a tour of Southeast Asia, an EU statement said.
Indonesia has resisted calls to slaughter healthy birds in infected areas -- a practice recommended by the UN -- because of the cost of compensating farmers and the millions of people who keep one or two birds in their backyards.
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