bird flu has 'pandemic potential'

Sunday, February 20, 2005. 7:36pm (AEDT)

Bird flu has 'pandemic potential'
One of the world's top researchers investigating outbreaks of bird flu in South-East Asia says she is extremely concerned by the scientific evidence emerging about the virus.

Nancy Cox is the head of the flu division of the United States Centre for Disease Control.

She says research now shows that bird flu is capable of mutating into a form that can spread from humans to humans.

"We found that for the 2003 virus, the virus had actually changed its receptive binding or its ability to bind to the receptors that are in human cells," she said.

"This shows that the virus can actually change in such a way, or has actually changed in the past in such a way, that might make it more easily transmitted from person to person."

She also says the recent spurt of human infections increases the likelihood that a mutant strain would arise that could spread between humans

"It's impossible to predict what the consequences would be. We might have a relatively mild pandemic like we did in 1968," Dr Cox said.

"Alternatively, we could have a relatively severe pandemic as occurred in 1918 or perhaps even worse."

The World Health Organisation says there have been 55 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans and 42 deaths.