HCM City (VNA)- The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated into a form easily transmitted among mammals, experts working at the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City said.
The results were drawn from a study by the institute’s molecular biological department into the H5N1 virus and the decoding of its genes.
Conducted between early 2004 and June 2006, the study resulted in researchers decoding 24 samples of the virus in poultry, waterfowl and humans in Viet Nam’s southern provinces.
Results from the institute’s website (www.pasteur-hcm.org.vn) show that the virus which caused an outbreak earlier this year was similar to the one circulating the region last year.
“The H5N1 virus found on human and waterfowls in early 2005 has some variations focusing on important functional parts of the surface glycoprotein”, said the website.
“There has been a mutation allowing the virus to breed effectively on mammal tissue and become highly virulent.”
The research also revealed the development of resistance by the H5N1 virus to the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, said the head of the research team, Cao Bao Van, on Nov. 14.
Van said that a 13-year-old girl who died of bird flu in Dong Thap province in January had failed to respond to a course of Tamiflu.
The finding, claimed Van, will once again raise concerns over the stockpile of Tamiflu, a drug considered the first line of defence against the bird flu virus.
“The supervision of Tamiflu’s resistance and the stockpiling of effective antiviral drugs is necessary and urgent,” stated the website.
The institute is expected to hold a meeting on Nov.15 to explain in details its findings, said Van.
With the spread of bird flu to ten provinces and cities across Viet Nam, Director of the Animal Health Department, Bui Quang Anh, has ordered localities to immediately establish quarantine check-points.
In an urgent message sent to local authorities on Nov. 13, Anh said provinces and cities must mobilise forces in order to ensure check-point are manned around the clock.
Mobile task force groups are also expected to be set up to both detect an outbreak and destroy the sick poultry.-Enditem
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