Dr. Fauci Says New Virus In China Features 2009 Swine Flu Traits
White House coronavirus director Dr. Anthony Fauci says the new virus found in China features traits from the 2009 Swine Flu (H1N1) and the 1918 pandemic flu.
Fauci adds that U.S. health officials are closely monitoring this new strain of flu, which is carried by pigs and spreading in pig farms across China. They are calling it “G4 EA H1N1,” and while it has “all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus” and exhibits “reassortment capabilities,” scientists say, at the moment, it has not yet been shown to appear in humans.
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Speaking to the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday, Fauci explains, “In other words, when you get a brand new virus that turns out to be a pandemic virus it’s either due to mutations and/or the reassortment or exchanges of genes. And they’re seeing virus in swine, in pigs now, that have characteristics of the 2009 H1N1, of the original 1918, which many of our flu viruses have remnants of that in it, as well as segments from other hosts, like swine.”
Fauci adds, “It’s something that still is in the stage of examination. [It’s not] an immediate threat where you’re seeing infections, but it’s something we need to keep our eye on, just the way we did in 2009 with the emergence of the swine flu.”
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