H5N1 Can Mix With Human Influenza Virus

A worrying new research paper has been published in the United States. It proves that H5N1 bird flu, which has so far only killed people in its pure form is capable of combining with conventional human flu viruses. A mutated virus combining human flu and bird flu is the nightmare strain which scientists fear could create a worldwide pandemic. The research was conducted in a laboratory by the US Centers for Disease Control. Jeff Waters reports: The great bird flu pandemic of 1918 was caused by an avian influenza virus which spread from birds and then directly from human to human. And it's a pure bird flu strain called H5N1 which has caused hundreds of deaths recently around the world. But there were also pandemics in 1957 and '68 which were caused when a bird flu combined with a human form of influenza and then spread globally. Now scientists at the Centers for Disease Control in the United States have proven that the very deadly H5N1 virus can also mix with human flu. It's only happened in the laboratory but it's causing concern. Dr David Smith is a director if microbiology and infectious diseases at PathWest laboratories in Perth. DAVID SMITH: It increases the level of concern that we may get a bad pandemic. It doesn't change our ongoing uncertainty about whether and when the pandemic will occur. That's something that is controlled by events that occur in nature and they are chance events that we can't accurately predict.