Work resumes on bird flu studies
2013-01-24 15:53
London - Scientists around the world declared an end on
Wednesday to a moratorium on research into mutant forms of the deadly H5N1 bird
flu that can be transmitted directly among mammals and had raised international
bio-security concerns.
Announcing their decision to resume what they say are
risky but essential studies of the avian flu strain, the scientists said the
work would only be carried out in the most secure sites in countries that agree
it can go ahead.
That will allow work to start again in key laboratories
in the Netherlands and elsewhere but not yet in the United States or US-funded
research centres, pending further regulatory moves there.
Scientists voluntarily halted work on the transmission of
H5N1 a year ago due to fears that scientific details about how to create such a
potentially dangerous virus could be used for bio-terrorism.
Flu experts said they had recognised those fears and
worked hard to calm them, and now it was time to push on.
They say the studies are essential for a deeper
understanding of H5N1, which many fear could one day spark a lethal pandemic in
humans.
The research may also boost efforts to develop global flu
"bio-surveillance", early warning systems, as well as drugs and
vaccines to protect against the threat.
"We fully acknowledge that this research - as with
any work on infectious agents - is not without risks," the scientists
wrote in a letter published jointly on Wednesday in the journals Nature and
Science.
"However, because the risk exists in nature that an
H5N1 virus capable of transmission in mammals may emerge, the benefits of this
work outweigh the risks."
The letter was signed by 40 flu researchers from the US,
China, Japan, Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy and Germany.
"The lifting of the moratorium will undoubtedly lead
to more scientific revelations that will have direct consequence for human and
animal health," said Wendy Barclay, a flu virologist at Imperial College
London and one of the letter's signatories.
All research into H5N1 transmission was halted in January
2012 after labs at the University of Wisconsin in the US and at the Dutch
Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam created mutant forms that can be
transmitted directly among mammals, meaning they could in theory also pass
between people.
Currently, bird flu can be transmitted from birds to
birds, and birds to humans, but not from humans to humans. When it does pass
from birds to humans, it is usually fatal.
Scientists are concerned the same mutations needed to
make it transmissible among mammals in a lab could one day happen in nature.
Knee-jerk response
News of the work that emerged late in 2011, prompted the
US National Science Advisory Board for Bio-security to call for the scientific
papers about it to be censored to prevent details falling into the wrong hands.
The censorship call sparked a fierce debate about how far
scientists should be allowed to go in manipulating dangerous infectious agents
in the name of research.
Barclay said this had been a "knee-jerk response
from certain quarters previously naive of this approach, expressing horror that
scientists were brewing up deadly diseases”.
During the moratorium, the World Health Organisation (WHO)
recommended that scientists should explain the biological and other security
measures they use to contain the virus and make more effort to show why the
research is so important.
"The laboratories have expanded on their containment
and security system... and I think the value of the results has been
recognised. Therefore, the... recommendations were satisfied," John
McCauley, director of the WHO collaborating centre for flu research at
Britain's National Institute for Medical Research said in a statement on
Wednesday.
In their letter, the scientists said the aims of the
moratorium had been met in some countries and are close to being met in others,
so it was now time to "declare an end" to it.
"H5N1 viruses continue to evolve in nature,"
they wrote. "Because H5N1 virus transmission studies are essential for
pandemic preparedness and understanding the adaptation of influenza viruses to
mammals, researchers... have a public health responsibility to resume this
important work."
