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Published online 30 April 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.424
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German virologist's race for swine flu test
Christian Drosten talks to Nature about tackling the threat of a pandemic.
Christian Drosten is head of the Institute of Virology at the University of Bonn Medical Centre, one of Germany's largest medical virology centres. But he is best known for winning the 2003 race to develop the first diagnostic test for the then-mysterious virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
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Did anyone read this? This virus share nearly all seq. with mexican one, except the HA. Human case of swine influenza A (H1N1), Aragon, Spain, November 2008. Adiego Sancho B, Omenaca Teres M, Martinez Cuenca S, Rodrigo Val P, Sanchez Villanueva P, Casas I, Pozo F, Perez Brena P. Direccion General de Salud Publica (Directorate General of Public Health), Zaragoza, Spain. mbadiego@aragon.es A human case of swine influenza A (H1N1) in a 50-year-old woman from a village near Teruel (Aragon, in the north-east of Spain), with a population of about 200 inhabitants, has been reported in November 2008. This virus share nearly all seq. with mexican one, except the HA.
Dear Walter, i think is very dangerous to name viruses after the country they have been founf in, socially it can cause discrimination and missunderstanding. It is very important that everyone, and more importantly the scientific comunity refer to the situation correctly. The virus is a H1N1 swine flu, not the mexican virus , as you call it. Thankyou.
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I have an enormous problem with one of the sentences on this text... "But as the virus optimized itself for life in its new host through mutation, it became much more virulent" I think it is especially important, in the current context of "controversy" over evolution (even if there is no controversy...) to carefuly word such important ideas. I doubt the virus "optimized itself", and I'm sure that Christian Drosten does not mean that the virus choosed the "good" mutations to be more fit in exploiting its host. But for someone with little background in evolution, this is the idea that comes out of this sentence. And this is dangerous?