Word: flu
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...portray an insane asylum in the blockbuster Batman Begins), scientists at the World Influenza Centre receive virus samples from around the world and use sophisticated machinery to map their genetic structures. During normal years, the scientists concoct the recipe that the World Health Organization (WHO) uses for seasonal-flu vaccines. But in a pandemic year, they become sentinels looking for any changes in the virus that could alter the course of the pandemic. (Read: "Five No-Nos for the Swine Flu Frenzy...
...World Influenza Centre in London, was at a meeting in Germany when he received a call from a co-worker: an influenza outbreak had been reported in Mexico and the first samples of the virus were on their way to London for examination. A virologist who has studied flu for more than 30 years, Daniels knew exactly what he was looking for. Influenza A viruses - the type that can cause pandemics - use a protein called hemagglutinin to bind to the cells of their animal hosts. When a virus jumps from animals to humans, its contagiousness is largely determined by what...
...soon as we saw a sequence of the hemagglutinin, we looked at the receptor binding site and found indications of an alpha-2,6 binding specificity," Daniels, 54, recalls. "I knew then - we have a problem." (See pictures of thermal scanners hunting for swine flu...
...Flu's hardiness as a human scourge is the result, paradoxically, of the instability of its genetic structure. One flu virus can easily swap genetic information with another or mutate as it reproduces. The World Influenza Centre is one of five WHO centers (there are others in Atlanta, Tokyo and Melbourne, and there's a lab in Memphis specializing in animal influenza) that form the hub of a global influenza-surveillance network. The center receives samples taken from ill patients in more than 100 countries. By examining the genetic makeup of the viruses in these samples, scientists can make educated...
Still, so far H1N1/09 hasn't proved a serious killer. But as the U.S. prepares for an uptick in infections this fall, even a mild pandemic could overload a clogged health-care system. And there's no guarantee the virus won't get worse--the Spanish flu was relatively light in the spring of 1918, only to turn lethal that autumn. U.S. health officials said on July 29 that they hope to have 120 million doses of a new H1N1/09 vaccine ready by October, but the virus could change by then, or the vaccine might prove less than effective. Virologists...