Workers give an H9 bird flu vaccine to chicks at a farm in Changfeng district, Anhui province, April 14, 2013. Photo: Reuters. A 41-year-old man in eastern China’s Jiangsu province has been confirmed as the first case of a rare bird flu called H10N3, Beijing’s National Health Commission (NHC) said. The man, a resident of Zhenjiang City, was hospitalized on April 28 and was diagnosed with H10N3 on May 28, the NHC said on June 1, adding that his condition was stable. determined. The NHC did not give details on how the man became infected but said a check of his close contacts found no other cases and the risk of transmission was very low. What does the world know about H10N3? Little is known about this virus, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which appears to be very rare in birds and does not cause serious illness. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that although the source of the patient’s exposure to the H10N3 virus has not been identified and no other cases have been found in the local population, there is still no indication of the disease. person-to-person transmission. However, avian influenza viruses may have little effect on birds but can have much more severe effects in humans, such as the H7N9 strain that killed nearly 300 people in China during the winter of 2016-2017. The WHO says there are only rare cases of human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 virus. What is the risk of H10N3 infection? The risk of further transmission of H10N3 is currently thought to be very low, with experts describing the case as “sporadic”. Such cases occasionally occur in China, where there are large numbers of domestic and wild birds of many species. And with increased surveillance of avian influenza among the population, more and more cases of avian influenza virus infections are occurring. In February, Russia reported its first human case of the highly damaging H5N8 virus on poultry farms across Europe, Russia and East Asia last winter. Authorities said seven people infected with the virus had no symptoms. Experts would be wary of any cluster of H10N3 cases, but for now, a single case is not a cause for concern. The WHO told Reuters in a statement: “As long as avian influenza viruses are circulating in poultry, sporadic human infection of avian influenza is not surprising, it is a living reminder that the threat of an influenza pandemic persists.” According to Filip Claes, regional laboratory coordinator of FAO’s Transboundary Animal Diseases Emergencies Center in the Asia Pacific regional office, only about 160 virus isolates have been reported. for 40 years to 2018. However, influenza viruses can mutate rapidly and mix with other strains circulating on farms or among migratory birds, known as “reclassification,” which means they can produce new strains of the virus. Genetic changes pose a threat of transmission to humans. What more will the world need to know? The genetic sequence of the virus that infects the patient has yet to be published and will be needed to fully assess its risk. Scientists will want to know how easily H10N3 can infect human cells to determine if it could pose a greater risk. For example, the H5N1 variant that first infected humans in 1997 is the most lethal, killing 455 people globally to date. It takes only a few mutations before the H5N1 variant is capable of spreading easily from person to person, said Ben Cowling, a professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health. Having the genetic information of the H10N3 variant will help assess whether it is “closer to the virus we should be worried about,” he said.

Security guards stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (China)Source: South China Morning Post Recently, Mr. Chris Said, a data scientist, a member of the House of Representatives of Malta, posted on Twitter a list of viruses that have accidentally escaped from laboratories so far. According to him, SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 29 countries around the world in 2003, had leaked from several Asian laboratories. The first time SARS-1 “escaped” was in August 2003 at the National University of Singapore. The second time happened in December 2003 in Taiwan (China). The results of the investigation showed that a SARS scientist in Taiwan handled the leaked biological waste without wearing gloves, masks or gowns. In April 2004, SARS-1 escaped from the National Institute of Virology of China. The H1N1 bird flu virus first appeared in the world in 1918, causing a global pandemic. In 1977, the virus “re-emerged” and many believe it was the result of a leak from a laboratory. That lab is said to be working on a way to produce a live attenuated vaccine in response to the threat of a global flu pandemic. Martin Furmanski, a researcher at the Scientific Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons (USA), wrote in a 2014 report that authorities do not want to disclose the laboratory origin of H1N1 because worried about affecting virus research cooperation between countries. “Virilologists and public health officials quickly realized that the most likely source (of H1N1) was a lab leak, but they agreed not to make this public,” Furmanski wrote. Foot-and-mouth disease emerged in the UK in 2007, about 4km from a biosafety level 4 laboratory in the Pirbright area. The results of the investigation showed that the construction vehicles were carrying sludge contaminated with the virus from a faulty sewage line in Pirbright, Italian newspaper The Print reported on May 31. Smallpox virus leaked from two prestigious smallpox laboratories in the UK. The first occurred in 1972 at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The second case was recorded in 1978 at the Birmingham Medical School. Continuing to investigate the origin of COVID-19 In recent days, world opinion has heated up again about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the global pandemic COVID-19. On May 13, a group of 18 scientists published in the journal Science (Science) of the United States, calling for a more thorough investigation of the origin of SARS-CoV-2. They believe that the hypotheses about the accidental release of the virus from the laboratory and natural transmission are both possible in reality. Earlier, in March, a team of experts sent by the World Health Organization (WHO) to China concluded that the hypothesis of a laboratory leak was “extremely unlikely” in reality. However, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the team’s assessment of whether SARS-CoV-2 could emerge in the community after a laboratory incident was “not broad enough” and request further investigation. Even America’s top medical expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who once denied the lab leak theory, now says he doesn’t believe the virus evolved naturally. US President Joe Biden has ordered the US intelligence community to investigate the origins of COVID-19, after new surveillance results showed there was a possibility of a pandemic after SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the laboratory. experience in China, American newspaper The Wall Street Journal reported on May 27. The White House came under pressure to investigate on its own after China told the WHO that its part of the investigation had been completed, and efforts to trace the source of the virus should turn to other countries. President Biden wants the US intelligence community to produce a report on the origin of COVID-19 within 90 days. He said that US intelligence focuses on two scenarios, SARS-CoV-2 comes from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory incident. Earlier, a US intelligence report wrote that three researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became so sick in November 2019 that they had to be hospitalized. In December 2019, China reported its first cases of COVID-19. “This questions the credibility of the claim by veteran researcher Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology that there is no transmission of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses among staff and students. of the Wuhan Institute of Virology”, American newspaper USA Today May 24, citing documents from the US State Department. However, the intelligence report on 3 Chinese researchers seriously ill The Wall Street Journal The mention is not conclusive evidence that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the lab, and the intelligence community still doesn’t know for sure what illness they have, CNN reported.