October 30, 2006

 

Timely administration of Tamiflu helped avert outbreak in India

 

 

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that hit India in February 2006 was sensitive to Tamiflu, the drug which many governments including India used to ward off a deadly bird flu pandemic.

 

Genetic and DNA sequencing of the virus collected from Jalgaon and Navapur by scientists from Bhopal's High Security Animal Disease Laboratory.

 

The two states were the most heavily affected by bird flu cases earlier in the year.

 

Results showed that the virus contained several types of amino acids - glutamic acid, asparigine, histidine and arvinone - that made it sensitive to Tamiflu.

 

This, scientists say, helped India avoid a possible transmission of the deadly H5N1 virus from birds to humans.

 

Scientists studying the 10 proteins, specially HA and NA present in the virus, said that timely administering of Tamiflu to those quarantined helped avert transmission of the virus to humans.

 

DNA analysis of the virus in India's labs has shown it to be highly sensitive to Tamiflu.

 

However, countries, such as Vietnam have cast doubts on the drug, reporting that the virus circulating there is resistant to Tamiflu, making its containment even more difficult.

 

India's DNA tests, conducted of the HA, NA, NS1 and PV2 proteins, showed the virus that hit the country was capable of infecting humans. Thus, a Tamiflu resistant virus would have resulted in people being infected by the bird flu virus easily.

 

The scientists say the virus that hit India had mutated and undergone a re-assortment in Turkey.  This means that the virus, which had originated in Qinghai (central China), was carried to Turkey by migratory birds.

 

It is there that the virus mutated and mixed with the Vietnamese strain, which was then brought to India by those birds.

 

Turkey is one of the few countries where both the Chinese and Vietnamese strain have been found.

 

The virus that was found in Navapur in India was a mixed strain, leading to suspicions the mixing happened in Turkey. One type of protein found was the Vietnamese type, and the other was Chinese.