2023-09-22 20:07:27
An effective fight against future mutations of the flu inevitably requires the accumulation of as much knowledge as possible on the mutant strains which appear here and there. However, China is accused of withholding information.
According to New York Timesfor a year now, the Chinese government has prevented American experts from having access to laboratory samples from H7N9, despite requests to this effect from medical authorities and research institutions. H7N9 is a variety of so-called “bird flu” which, since it was observed in China in 2013, regularly gives health experts headaches. They fear the appearance of a mutation allowing the virus to be easily transmitted from human to human (the virus occasionally manages to be transmitted from poultry to humans).
Such sharing of laboratory samples is governed by guidelines issued in 2011 by the World Health Organization (Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework). The reasons for this withholding of information are unknown. But as tensions rise between the American and Chinese governments, writes the New York Times, “some scientists fear that vital exchanges of medical equipment and information could slow down, harming preparations for the next biological threat.” .
It is this type of scenario that worries infectious disease experts each time the scenario of a new epidemic is raised: a close cousin of a known virus, but different enough that our immune system and vaccines cannot act effectively against him.
Measles in Europe killed 37 people in 2018… so far
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#flu #withholding #information