Learn How to Protect Your Family From Bird Flu -- Now

Bird Flu Protection

This blog updates the ebook How to Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones From Bird Flu. Includes news on bird flu and the coming pandemic. Information on how to enhance your immune system and resources to help you.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Qinghai Lake bird flu virus samples sent to U.S.

In the spring of 2005, a major die off of migratory birds around Qing Hai Lake in China signalled the emergence of a new strain of bird flu, now known as Qinghai Lake strain.

It's considered scientifically important because it is genetically different from the strains of bird flu going around SouthEast Asia -- Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The Qinghai Lake strain spread to the Middle East and Africa, presumably via migratory birds, because Qinghai Lake is a major resting place for migrating birds in Asia.

Because it's the dominant strain in Africa, understanding it may be important to fighting the disease in that country, where resources are much scarcer than in even the poor parts of rural Asia.

However, China has not released the genetic information on Qinghai Lake, until recently.

On September 28, samples taken from dead birds found around Qinghai Lake in early 2005 have been sent to the U.S., so the Center for Disease Control CDC can run sophisticated genetic sequencing analysis on them.

This should enable scientists around the world to learn more about how the H5N1 virus has developed and mutated and therefore how this subtype may mutate in the future.



China shares Qinghai Lake bird flu isolates






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