Corpse could yield H5N1 clues
2007-02-28 16:30
London - The body of a British diplomat who died of a flu epidemic in 1919 is to be exhumed by scientists hunting ways to combat the virulent H5N1 bird flu strain, reported The Guardian on Wednesday.
Sir Mark Sykes fell victim to a Spanish flu epidemic which killed at least 30 million people worldwide.
The flu was caused by an avian virus, H1N1, which came from a bird in France and is similar to the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain.
The co-author of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which dismantled the Ottoman Empire, was buried in a sealed lead coffin, which researchers hope will mean his body has been well preserved.
There are only five usable tissue samples worldwide from the 1918-19 epidemic and none has come from a body buried in a lead coffin.
Professor John Oxford, a virology professor at Queen Mary College in London who applied for the body to be dug up, told The Guardian that it would be a "huge step forward" if the corpse were well preserved.
'Research could combat H5N1'
Peter Collier, the legal official who approved the exhumation, said there were "strong grounds" for believing it might yield samples "that will enable Professor Oxford's team to carry out research that they have until now not been able to".
There is a "real prospect" that his research "will advance the capability of others to combat the H5N1 virus", added Collier.
The body, buried in a graveyard in Sledmere, Yorkshire, is due to be exhumed within the next year, pending a licence from the home Office and the approval of a medical ethics committee.
The Sykes-Picot agreement, signed during World War 1 in 1916, was a secret understanding between Britain and France outlining spheres of control in the Middle East.
Under its terms, Britain was allocated areas of control in Jordan and Iraq, while France was given power over Syria, Lebanon and southeast Turkey.