Bird Flu Virus Found in Pigs

World | February 6, 2004, Friday // 00:00

A UN agency testing the bird flu virus, which accounts for two more deaths in Vietna, taking Asia's death toll to 18, revealed it in pigs, a potentially disturbing development that highlights the risks to humans. Health experts had feared the H5N1 virus, ravaging poultry flocks in eight countries with two more reporting milder strains, would get into pigs, whose immune system is similar to humans' and which suffer from a wide variety of diseases that also infect people. Scientists say this makes them ideal vessels for mixing genes from the bird flu pathogen and the human influenza virus.

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