Scientists slam 'appalling irresponsibility' of researchers in China who deliberately created new strains of killer flu virus

Former government chief scientist Lord May accused Chinese team of 'blind ambition'
Researchers created strains in a bid to develop vaccines
Comes as experts warn new flu strain that has killed 27 in China could spread to Europe

PUBLISHED: 07:10 EST, 3 May 2013 | UPDATED: 08:17 EST, 3 May 2013

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One of Britain's leading scientists has hit out at Chinese researchers who created new strains of a killer flu virus in a bid to develop vaccines.

They claim the 'hybrid' flu, which mixes bird flu virus with human flu, could escape the lab and lead to a global health crisis pandemic killing millions of people.

It comes amid rising fears of a flu epidemic as China struggles to contain an outbreak of the virus.

The Bird Flu Virus up close: researchers fear an experimental strain of he killer virus could escape from the Chinese lab that created it

The Bird Flu Virus up close: researchers fear an experimental strain of the killer virus could escape from the Chinese lab that created it

LIFTING THE BAN

Fears over hybrid flu escaping led to scientists imposing a voluntary moratorium on their H5N1 research, banning transmission studies using ferrets.

However, researchers decided to lift the ban earlier this year, arguing that they have now consulted widely with health organisations and the public over safety concerns.

However, some scientists still oppose the work, saying any work is too dangerous and experimental strains could escape the lab.

Professor Hualan Chen, director of China’s National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, deliberately mixed the H5N1 bird-flu virus, which is highly lethal but not easily transmitted between people, with a 2009 strain of H1N1 flu virus, which is very infectious to humans.

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The researchers claim the work could help develop a vaccine.

'The work of Zhang and colleagues provides a framework for further studies examining how the structure of the avian flu virus influences how readily it could transition to being a pathogen with human pandemic potential,' Science Express, the journal which published the research, said.

The study, which was carried out in a laboratory with the second highest security level to prevent accidental escape, resulted in 127 different viral hybrids between H5N1 and H1N1, five of which were able to pass by airborne transmission between laboratory guinea pigs.

However, it is feared the mutated viruses could escape, sparking a global pandemic.

'They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like,' Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist and past president of the Royal Society, told The Independent.

'In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever, and the record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring.

'They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s appallingly irresponsible,' he said.

It comes as experts warn human cases of a deadly new strain of bird flu that has killed 27 people in China are likely to crop up in Europe and around the world.

Quarantine activities at a bay in Hwaseong City, South Korea. Lord May, a former Government science advisor, warned the 'hybrid' flu, which mixes bird flu virus with human flu, could escape the lab and kill millions

In his first media interview since returning from an international scientific mission to China last week, Professor Angus Nicoll, the head of the influenza and respiratory viruses programme at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), said the H7N9 flu outbreak in humans was one that should be taken extremely seriously and watched closely.

'We are at the start of a very long haul with H7N9,' Nicoll told Reuters in a telephone interview.

He said there were many scientific questions to be answered about the new flu strain, which was first detected in patients in China in March having been previously unknown in humans.

The flu has so far infected at least 127 people in China and killed 27 of them, according to latest data from Chinese health authorities and the World Health Organization.

Scientific studies of the virus have established it is being transmitted from birds - probably mostly chickens - to people, making it a so-called zoonotic disease that humans catch from animals rather than from other humans.

Nicoll, who visited Beijing and Shanghai last week with a team of international scientific experts, confirmed what the WHO has repeatedly said - that there is no evidence yet of the virus efficiently passing from person to person - a factor that would make H7N9 a serious pandemic flu threat if it were to evolve.

A worker sprays disinfectant in a live poultry market in Banchiao, New Taipei City, ahead of a sweeping ban on live poultry slaughter in markets that will take effect across Taiwan in two weeks

Nicoll said the 'most pressing public health question' for now was to identify the source of the circulating virus - the so-called 'reservoir' - that is leading to chickens contracting it and sporadically passing it on to humans.

This is likely to take time, with any results unlikely for several months.

He said the ECDC, which monitors disease in the European Union, and health authorities around the world should expect that 'imported cases' of H7N9 flu may well begin to crop up elsewhere.

Flu experts speaking at a briefing in London on Wednesday said those mutations, together with evidence that H7N9 is still mutating rapidly and probably spreading almost invisibly among birds because it does not make them obviously sick, meant this new flu was a 'serious threat' to world health.

'You can never predict anything about flu, but it is concerning to see those mutations there, Nicoll said. 'That's why it's important Europe should take this very seriously.'

Nicoll added that he thought the Chinese were doing an 'impressive job' handling, reporting, investigating and seeking to contain the outbreak.

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Terry McCarthy, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 5 months ago

If a pandemic virus was deliberately manufactured and released there is absolutely no way it could be controlled. There is also the very real and grave danger that, once out in the general population , it could mutate into an even more deadly form. The Chinese know this and are not trying to kill us off, they are merely being irresponsible, as suggested in this article.

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Debbie, Woking, 5 months ago

The USA are doing it too and recently had a deadly virus stolen form one of their labs!

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gruntfolk, london, United Kingdom, 5 months ago

We disserve what we get. Who really cares!

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gman99, belfast/N.IRELAND, 5 months ago

Maybe the conspiracy buffs had a point ... depopulation seems to be on the agenda ... Why create an EVEN more dangerous STRAIN OF BIRD FLU unless you're willing to use it !!! MADNESS ...!!!

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Hector Spector, Nowhere land, United Kingdom, 5 months ago

Looks like the conspiracy theorist were so crazy after all!.

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ashl0001, Sawtry_Hunts, 5 months ago

@UnelectedCoalition: please take your idiotic conspiracy theories elsewhwere. I used to work at the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research at Porton Down and had contact with people, "over the wire" at Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment run by the MoD - they work on counter-measures, the UK hasn't worked on Chemical and Biological weapons since it signed the appropriate Treaty in 1979.