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Corpse from flu pandemic may unravel virus' mystery

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The Webfairy [webfairy]

Saturday, December 14, 2002 11:38 AM

Corpse from flu pandemic may unravel virus' mystery

 

 

Not content with smallpox and anthrax, revival of 1918 flu intrigues " science "

 

 

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/techscience/story/0,4386,160399,00.html

 

Corpse from flu pandemic may unravel virus' mystery

 

PARIS - Scientists plan to dig up the body of a woman who died in the flu

pandemic of 1918-19 in a bid to pinpoint the genetic causes of the 20th

century's most lethal plague, New Scientist magazine reports.

 

They hope the body of Phyllis Burn, which has lain in a West London cemetery for

84 years, will contain a complete, preserved copy of the viral strain which is

one of the world's great medical mysteries.

 

Between 20 million and 40 million people died after this vicious form of

influenza erupted on the Western front in World War I and rapidly swept among

civilians when it was brought home by demobilised troops.

 

The virus disappeared with the same swiftness that it appeared. For years,

virologists have thirsted to know more. They are desperate to understand why

this strain was so infectious and able to kill so easily, especially healthy

young people.

 

Ms Burn died on Oct 20, 1918, at the age of only 20 after returning to London

from service as a Red Cross ambulance driver in France.

 

Her grieving parents, who were wealthy, had her buried in a lead-lined coffin,

which makes an airtight seal and provides conditions that can keep a corpse in

an almost perfect state for 150 years.

 

Professor John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary's School of Medicine in

London, pored over thousands of burial records in London from the autumn of 1918

before coming upon Ms Burn, who is buried in Twickenham cemetery, the New

Scientist says.

 

He has received permission from the Burn family's descendants to disinter her

remains and is now awaiting the go-ahead from church and health authorities.

 

The operation, if it is approved, will be conducted by a team wearing biohazard

suits, just in case a live virus has survived more than eight decades

underground.

 

Researchers trying to unravel the 1918-19 strain have previously dug up flu

victims buried in Alaskan permafrost, but the results were disappointing. Only

genetic fragments of the virus were recovered, not the whole sequence.

 

Worried epidemiologists say it is only a matter of time before the same strain,

or something equally deadly, strikes again.

 

Flu is a notoriously mutating virus and new strains can be brewed up in farm

animals, such as pigs and poultry, which pass them on to human beings.

 

An outbreak of a lethal animal-to-humans strain, H5N1, killed six people in

Hongkong in 1997.

 

Unlike the 1918-19 pandemic, it did not have the ability to spread readily

between people and the authorities conducted a mass slaughter of chickens and

ducks to attack the virus at its source.

 

Similar strains to H5N1 have twice reappeared in Hongkong fowl and are believed

to be circulating among wild bird populations in southern China. --AFP

 

 

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§ - PULSE ON WORLD HEALTH CONSPIRACIES! §

 

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