Cattle could act as a breeding ground for future flu outbreaks. So say researchers tracking emerging strains in animals in the hope of averting further human pandemics.

Killing nearly half a million people worldwide, the last flu pandemic swept the globe in 1968. Flu viruses originate in wild birds and are thought to become lethal when they cross into poultry or pigs. In cells infected with another flu variety, the viruses pick up genes that enable them to infect humans.

Cows, too, could be harbouring new strains, a joint meeting of the European Society for Clinical Virology, the European Society for Veterinary Virology and the Society for General Microbiology heard in London today. Ian Brown and his colleagues at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency near Weybridge, UK, have detected influenza genes in cattle for the first time. "There may be different hosts out there," Brown warns.

Dormant cattle viruses could emerge in more virulent forms to infect humans, agrees flu researcher Alan Hay of the National Institute for Medical Research in London. It is not known where the cattle virus originated, nor whether it can spread from cow to cow..................Click for more

Source Web Page: naturenews