An emerging strain of flu in China is drawing scientists’ attention just as the world is battling the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish flu.
Chinese researchers identified a new strain of influenza that is infecting pigs in China and that has characteristics of the so-called swine flu, or H1N1, that resulted in the 2009 pandemic.
Earlier this week, researchers published a report in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, that identifies a strain of flu, G4 EA H1N1, that has H1N1-like traits and could be transmitted to humans.
The scientists, who conducted research on Chinese pig populations in various provinces between 2011 and 2018, described that the new flu has all the attributes necessary for a pandemic.
“G4 viruses have all the essential characteristics of a possible pandemic virus,” the report reads. “Control of the predominant G4 EA H1N1 viruses in pigs and close monitoring in human populations, especially workers in the pig industry, must be implemented urgently,” the researchers wrote.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines swine flu as a respiratory disease of pigs caused by influenza A viruses that regularly cause influenza outbreaks in pigs.
There is talk of an emerging disease when the world is grappling with SAR-COV2, the new coronavirus strain that causes respiratory disease COVID-19 that was first identified in Wuhan, China in December.
There are more than 10 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide and at least 507,014 people have died, according to data added by Johns Hopkins University. The United States continues to lead the world, with a total of 2.6 million cases and 126,360 deaths. The data has been revised downward since this morning.
On Tuesday, the US’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said, “There is a possibility that you may have another swine flu outbreak like the one we had in 2009,” in testimony before a committee of the Senate on the status of the COVID -19 pandemic.
“It is something that is still in the examination stage,” said the public health expert. Fauci said the flu was not “an immediate threat where infections are seen, but it is something that we must monitor, just as we did in 2009 with the appearance of the swine flu.”
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