The full BBC NEWS article.:
"The Spanish flu virus that killed 50 million people in 1918-19 was probably a strain that originated in birds, research has shown......
"The researchers believe the two other major flu pandemics of the 20th century - in 1957 and 1968 - were caused by human flu viruses which acquired two or three key genes from bird flu virus strains.
"But they believe the 1918 strain was probably entirely a bird flu virus that adapted to function in humans.......
"Professor John Oxford, an expert in virology at Queen Mary College, London, said the suggestion that the virus had the potential to jump between humans without first combining with a human virus made it even more of a threat.
"'This study gives us an extra warning that H5N1 needs to be taken even more seriously than it has been up to now,' he said."
Thursday, October 06, 2005
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