April 4, 2006
US experiments with deadly virus
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun a series of experiments to see how likely the bird flu virus may result in a human pandemic.
The experiments would simulate the mixing and matching of genes from the H5N1 avian flu virus and a common human flu virus that public-health experts fear could turn avian flu into a pandemic.
CDC scientists have started exchanging the genes of the H5N1 avian virus with the genes of an H3N2 virus, the strain behind most recent human flu outbreaks. The experiments will mix the eight genes of each virus to see which of the 250 combinations create flu viruses that could spread easily among humans.
