Its now designated as Novel A H1N1 Influenza.

I am still calling it BS#1!

Well - We're sure being spoonfed this crap on the MSM for a purpose. Just what is My question...

Social Modeling is My guess and perhaps even a Wargame Exercise going on here. This is a dry run IMB (In My Belief). Time will tell...

Prep'ed ?

whole thing is BULLSHIT and your falling for the hype, oh wait.

run to the hills but dont forget to take your vaccinations!

Refresh my memory, what does
N
O
V
E
L

stand for?

The "novel" distinction stems from a GWB Executive Order [#13375] dated April 1, 2005. It amends the pre-existing EO # 13295 that defines influenza of pandemic proportions.

The insertion of the word 'novel' allows the inclusion of weaponised viruses [as well as unique, entirely NEW strains - natural or not] to be covered under the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza - a doc that lays out what the feds will do when we finally get royally nailed by this nasty bug [or its mutants]. The specific text from the EO reads as follows:

"(c) Influenza caused by novel or reemergent influenza viruses that are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic."

Dude - I'm not falling for anything. Read what I posted again - Discuss means Discuss...

FFSs - LOL...

:sc:

Why this is novel is that it came out of nowhere. Its not the standard H1N1 human and H3N2 human that the annual vaccines are designated to protect against. After a copule of years or so these viruses through grandual mutation become such that the vaccione is no longer effective, so they are continuously trying to find a sample of more recent virus outbreaks to use in the vaccine hoping that it is close enough to what will be coming out the following season and as it takes some time to prepare the vaccine they are always behind the eight ball. But this virus, even though bearing the designation H1N1 is completely different because it is swine and not human. Its a triple reassortment with human, swine and bird genes but predominantly swine. And the closes gene, the HA, is only 94% related to the closest swine HA. It apparently means this was evolving somewhere in the world unbeknowst to scientists - probably somewhere in eurasia. They only go and test when there is a pig die off.

What is new about this one is that the present predominant virus in pigs is H3N2 swine which would be the one that you would expect to become infectious to humans at some point just like the predominant bird strain is H5N1. The swine virus is normally only transmissible through contact with pigs and doesn't transmit human to human. Thats why all the hoopla at WHO over confirmation of human to human transmission.

It should be called the WHO flu

Or maybe because it's "novel", we could call it the

NEW WHO FLU

Q: How large is the genome?

R.D.: It’s 14 kilobases.

Q: It’s only a little larger than HIV. You could sequence it in hours.

R.D.: Yes. It’s tiny.

Q: How close is it to the closest strain you know of?

R.D.: Depends which genes. You have similarities of about 94% in the hemaggluttinin [H] to the nearest strain we know.

Q: Is it of swine origin?

R.D.: Definitely. It’s almost equidistant to swine viruses from the United States and Eurasia. And it’s a lonely branch there. It doesn’t have any close relatives.

Q: How about the neuraminidase gene?

R.D.: It has close relatives in Asia. It’s also swine.

Q: The matrix gene?

R.D.: The same as neuraminidase.

Q: So where are avian and human sequences?

R.D.: We have to step back [to] 10 years ago. In 1998, actually, Chris Olsen is one of the first that saw it, and we saw the same in a virus from Nebraska and Richard Webby and Robert Webster in Memphis saw it, too. There were unprecedented outbreaks of influenza in the swine population. It was an H3.

Q: They were dying from it?

R.D.: No. It was not very severe in healthy pigs. Everyone was very curious about these H3 viruses. Since 1918, normally it’s only H1N1 in swine. Then all of a sudden there’s H3N2 in swine in the Midwestern U.S. When people analyzed what was inside those viruses, they realized there were three different things.

The PB1 gene, that was human. H3 and N2 also were human. The PA and PB2, the two polymerase genes, were of avian flu. The rest were typical North American swine viruses. Those strains were the so-called triple reassortants.

Q: We always hear of the pig as a mixing vessel combining human, avian, and pig influenzas. Why didn’t you regularly see reassortants?

R.D.: Good questions. These questions have no answer. There is an explanation somewhere.

The reality is good molecular surveillance in the pigs started in the 1970s. So if there were strains that were not very dominant between the 1930s and the ’70s, we wouldn’t have detected them. This triple reassortant was very successful and took over and dominated the picture—to the point where the classical H1N1 was almost extinct.

Q: Why were the first triple reassortants more fit?

R.D.: They were H3s, and H3 is a different subtype, so there was no immunity in the pigs. It was probably that they had new polymerase genes, too.

Q: How does it tie to the current outbreak?

R.D.: Where does all this talk about avian and human genes come from? I was describing a fully swine virus. For [the] last 10 years, this has been a fully swine virus. Can you tell I have an accent? I’m a U.S. citizen but I have the roots in Argentina. It’s like me. I’ve been in the U.S. since 1980. I’m a U.S. citizen but I have an accent.

Q: It’s not as though human and avian just got there in this strain.

R.D.: It’s part of the swine virus.

Q: What’s the newest part of this strain?

R.D.: Neuraminidase and the matrix are the newest to be seen in North America. They were not part of the team—I talk about flu virus as teams of genes. There are eight players. They have these two new players from Asia.

Q: It suggests a mixing of pigs from North America and Asia.

R.D.: One little detail we haven’t discussed is [that] these Midwestern viruses were exported to Asia. Korea and many countries import from the U.S. Swine flu is economically not such a big deal that many countries don’t check for it.


Q: How do you get Europe in there?

R.D.: There are some parts of the puzzle I don’t have the answer to. The genetic lineages of Asia and Europe mix quite a bit.

Q: How does the pig get back here?

R.D.: Who said it was a pig that came from Asia? Did I say that? It could be a person.

Q: So the origin might trace back to Europe or Asia.

R.D.: I didn’t say that. I don’t want to point the finger at anyone.

Q: It does suggest that mixing didn’t happen in Mexico.

R.D.: Probably not. The amazing thing is the hemagglutinins we are seeing in this strain are a lonely branch that have been evolving somewhere and we didn’t know about it.


Q. Can you look at sequence to see what makes it transmit human-to-human?

R.D.: If I could, I would be the chief of the CDC or NIH [National Institutes of Health].

Q: You don’t want either of those jobs.

R.D.: [Laughter.] I don’t think we can do it in silico.

Q: Do you know the percent difference of the entire sequence to the older triple reassortant that dominated?

R.D.: We have [a] 6% or higher percentage difference in neuraminidases. You have multiple amino acids that differ. And single amino acid changes can change receptor specificity. When you have so many changes, you don’t know which ones are responsible.

Q: How about pathogenesis? Can you tease that out in vitro?

R.D.: One traditional approach is to take advantage of viral modules that allow you to assemble different teams, to make reassortants that take a virus say from North America that doesn’t transmit, and you swap one gene from the virus that does transmit. If the hypothesis is that hemagglutinin is responsible, you put in the background of the genes from the old virus. You need an animal model, usually the ferret.

Q: Have you been able to compare isolates from Mexico and the United States?

R.D.: Yes, they are very, very similar. Many genes are identical. In the eight or nine viruses we’ve sequenced, there is nothing different.

[link to blogs.sciencemag.org]

Or maybe the WHO (K)NEW FLU ?