http://www.heise.de/tr/artikel/80553
(in German)
Robert-Koch-Price for Palese and Yoshihiro.
Palese said:
I consider it very likely that there will be a flu-pandemic in the foreseeable future. [being asked] Yes, it could be worse than 1918 (in theory).
He refuses Taubenberger’s conclusion that the 1918 virus is more avian than human, this were still unclear.
It’s not particularly likely that H5N1 is close to establish in humans.
A H5N1-pandemic by random mutations is as likely as one by reassortment. But at least as likely is that another serotype will cause the next pandemic. He favours H7 and H2.
Even if I don’t think that a H5N1 pandemic is imminent, so politicians should do something, because other serotypes are also a danger.
It’s very likely that the next pandemic will come, even if no one can predict by which serotype and whether it will be worse than 1918 or not.
Well, seems like Palese is changing his tune.
And covering all possibilities…
And still like H7 and H2.
Interesting…
thank you!
Anonymous…I’m confused.
First, he says, ‘’”I consider it very likely that there will be a flu-pandemic in the foreseeable future. [being asked] Yes, it could be worse than 1918 (in theory).”’
And then he says, “It’s very likely that the next pandemic will come, even if no one can predict by which serotype and whether it will be worse than 1918 or not.”
Which is it? Anon_22. Which tune was he singing? And what tune now?
He used to say he didn’t believe H5N1 could become a pandemic strain, or that the risk of a pandemic in the near term was higher than ‘normal’ times.
Now he is just covering all the different permutations. Which has the effect of them cancelling each other out. Well, sort of.
Ending up with…nothing.
The only thing that I infer is that he is trying to change his tune, not very congruently, and not very successfully.
Well, to be fair, he’s always said that we should prep for the next pandemic, he just didn’t think H5N1 would go pandemic since it hadn’t already. Others (Ian Lipkin, Columbia) also worry about H7 or some other serology (and also agree about prepping).
OK, here is a babelfish-translation:
One year ago virus researchers the flu virus could
reconstruct incalculable flu of Sascha Karberg, which demanded
during the Pandemie of 1918 approximately 50 million human life.
Peter Palese was one this researcher. The native Sudeten German,
that in Austria buildup, researches for 36 years in the USA particularly
at influenza-viren and belongs to the fathers of a technology
named Reverser genetics. Thus the hereditary property of the influenza-
viren can be manipulated purposefully, so that does not only examine
the functions of the virus genes exactly, but also suitable virus
variants for vaccines to be manufactured to be able. For these
work Palese, which researches to the Mount Sinai Medical School
in New York, beside the Japanese Yoshihiro Kawaoka received the
Robert cook price of this year from the University of Tokyo end
of the week. Virologen differentiate influenza-varianten particularly
on the basis two genes, which code for two cladding proteins of
the virus, the Haemaglutinin (H) and the Neuraminidase (N). 16
h and nine n-Varienten are so far identified, reliably give it
however much more. The 1918er-Virus had the variant 1 from both
proteins and H1N1 is therefore called. H2-Viren released the Asia
flu 1957 and H3-Viren the 1968er-Hongkong-Grippe. H5 and H7-Varianten
can be transferred so far only between birds. With H5-influenza
infected humans (so far approximately 250 cases) cannot infect
other humans.
TR: Professor Palese, your colleagues the impression,
it is a kind automatism aroused that from the bird flu virus
H5N1 a human influenza-virus will develop sometime that a Pandemie
releases like 1918.
Peter Palese: I hold it for very probable
that it will give a influenza-pandemie in foreseeable time. If
one investigates in the past centuries, then it gave in each century
three to four influenza-pandemien. I do not believe that it must
be absolutely the H5N1-Virus, which releases the next Pandemie.
And it must be also no as devastating Pandemie, as 1918. 1968
and 1957 passed the outbreaks moderate much.
TR: For one year
you examine the influenza-virus, which released 1918 with 50 million
dead ones probably the most devastating flu Pandemie in the laboratory.
Did you find a cause for its unusual aggressiveness in the hereditary
property of the virus in the meantime?
Palese: We could show in
the laboratory at mice that the 1918er-Virus is actually as infectious
and deadly as no other flu virus before and thereafter. But there
is no special singular signature in the hereditary property, which
would be the exclusive cause of this aggressiveness. All virus
genes carry certain changes, and it is probably the combination
of these mutations, which optimize the virus altogether. That
is as with a Sprinter: Naturally needs the particularly good legs,
but it needs also both arms for the balance and good chest muscles
for breathing. Good times can safe be run, but evenly not the
best also with only one arm. The 1918er-Virus is a winner, because
coincidentally all parts of the body, all genes of the hereditary
property cooperated perfectly. Thus a flu variant came off, as
we could observe it never before. And perhaps it will never give
again a so ideal combination of optimal gene variants.
TR:Aber
is called nevertheless also that itself quite a still more aggressive
virus than from 1918 could developing?
Palese: I would not exclude
that. Thus I do not want to make a panic, but scientifically that
is possible. It gives to be evenly many possibilities, a good
Sprinter.
TR: Its colleague Jeffrey Taubenberger reconstructed
the component succession of the 1918er-Virus from virus remainders,
which he won from exhumierten victims of the Pandemie. On the
basis these hereditary property goods Taubenberger states that
the virus of 1918 bird flu viruses is more similar than human
flu viruses and the 1918er-Virus probably over-jumped without
a new combination in humans directly from the bird on humans.
Palese: The hereditary property goods Taubenbergers are o. k.,
but I do not divide the interpretation of the data. In order
to be able to judge really, whether the 1918er-Virus is more similar
to the bird flu viruses than the human influenza-viren at this
time, it is missing to Taubenberger the vergleichsmoeglichkeiten.
If we compare human DNA, Zebra DNA and any with one another plant
well, then humans appear naturally the zebra very similar. We
would have to examine a whole number of human influenza-staemme,
which circulated before 1918. As long as we cannot do that, it
is impossible to make this statement. The problem with Taubenbergers
argumentation is that it suggests thereby, also the H5N1-Vogelgrippevirus
could still in the bird in such a way change that it can jump
over direct on humans. Since I do not believe that the 1918er-
Virus bird flu viruses is particularly similar, I do not believe
also that it is particularly probable that H5N1 is short before
it, to be established in humans.
TR: Thus there are still equal
two probable possibilities for H5N1, on humans of over-jumping.
.. Palese: Yes. On the one hand the antigen drift in such a way
specified: The virus accumulates mutations, which change it in
such a way sometime only in the bird and then in humans that from
humans to humans will transfer it can. On the other hand an antigen
SHIFT: Humans are infected both by bird flu and a influenza-virus,
so that their hereditary property can again combine itself. These
mixing viruses are then infectious for humans and starting point
of a Pandemie. But there is still another third possibility, which
is at least just as probable: The fact that the next pandemische
influenza-stamm is not called H5N1 but from any other influenza-
stamm develops, perhaps from a H7 or a H2-Variante.
TR: Was the
Pandemie so serious 1918 also, because humans were weakened by
the First World War?
Palese: Humans died 1918 in war-weakened
Europe exactly the same as in Kansas, where humans did not have
a war behind itself and enough to meals. Thus not the food situation,
but the immunity status of the population is the most important
factor for the weight of a Pandemie. Since we inoculate at present
against descendants of the 1918er-H1N1-Virus, it is very improbable
that the 1918er could cause today still another Pandemie. In the
laboratory we can protect mice with the available vaccines anyhow
from the 1918er-Virus. If a H2-Variante would return, then it
could infect only persons, who are younger than 36. Because H2-
Viren released and circulated 1957schon once a Pandemie until
approximately 1968 in the population. All humans, who are younger
than 36 years, were not confronted no more with H2-Viren, so that
they might not have immune protection opposite H2-Viren. But everyone,
which lived about five years in a population, in the H2 circulated,
might be immune. More seriously H5 or H7-Pandemien would be probable,
since humans could not develop immune protection against these
variants.
TR: May we count at all still on a Pandemie of the 1918er-
Ausmass in view of all the medical possibilities, which there
are today differently than at the end of the First World War?
Palese: It is correct that there are differently than 1918 today
antiviral active substances such as Tamiflu and also antibiotics,
which work against secondary bacterial infections. In addition
we have today the technology, in order to produce vaccines in
relatively short time. These medical tools must be merged however
into an infrastructure, in order to be able to prevent a disaster.
In new Orleans the government could have prevented the consequences
of the hurricane, because the technology to build a dam would
be Trade Union of German Employees nature. If we would inoculate
each year not only a quarter, but the whole population against
influenza, then we would have developed a medical infrastructure,
which prepares us for a Pandemie sufficiently. Because the vaccine
could not protect from the seasonal influenza against a Pandemie
virus. It cannot do that, because it protects only against H1-
influenza-Varianten. But a market would develop, which puts the
vaccine manufacturers into the position to develop the necessary
capacities which would be necessary for a rapid mass inoculation
in the case a Pandemie.
TR: In Germany poultry is not inoculated
against the H5N1-Virus. In China or also in France already. How
do you stand to such inoculation?
Palese: Poultry can be inoculated
and should against the H5N1-influenza-Virus. We built a gene for
the cladding protein Haemagglutinin of the influenza-virus into
the hereditary property of the Newcastle virus, in order to have
a vaccine against both illnesses. Against the Newcastle epidemic
chickens are already for a long time inoculated by routine. This
chimaere vaccine protects the animals now both against Newcastle
and against H5N1-Infektionen.
TR: In China the inoculation against
H5N1 obviously did not contain the epidemic, but to the selection
of resistant germs did not lead.
Palese: The vaccine must be given
in a relatively high dose, because it consists of killed H5N1-
Viren. Probably the necessary dose is often not kept, because
the vaccine is diluted. Thus only a partial Immunisierung develops.
If the chicken is then infected, then the immune system of the
bird developed too little anti-body, and a certain number of viruses
can increase. It is as with antibiotics, if one gives only one
tenth of the dose, then selects one resistant bacteria trunks.
Our living person vaccine is already safer, because one needs
only one thousandth of the quantity compared with killed virus
vaccine. I am confident that the Chinese will copy this technology
soon.
TR: An argument against inoculating is also that infected
itself of inoculated chickens not differentiate do not let.
Palese:
That is correct for the available vaccine, but our chimaerer vaccine
for example has only the Haemagglutinin portion of the influenza-
virus. If one tests the chickens whether they carry another influenza-
protein as for example the Neuraminidase, then one will find only
with infected, but not the inoculated animals.
TR: In the last
year we observed the world-wide spreading of the H5N1-Vogelgrippe.
Can you say, what expects us in this year?
Palese: Human influenza
predominantly spreads in the winter months. The same Saisonalitaet
applies to the bird flu. Thus we will see again a rise of the
cases in the northern hemisphere. On resistant birds we cannot
count yet, because so far only fractions of the game bird populations
were infected.
TR: This year still more humans with the H5N1-Vogelgrippevirus
will infect themselves?
Palese: That is difficult to predict.
The rise of the cases in the last years must no biological cause
anyhow have, but might to a certain part of the better diagnosis
and communication be owed.
TR: Still there is no Pandemie, we
talk thus about a theoretical Pandemie danger. Isn’t the influenza
overrated in view of as urgent infection illnesses as AIDS?
Palese:
We should not schueren H5N1-Panik to only move in order something.
The regular influenza is a sufficiently serious illness, in order
to worry about it. Infect itself annually about five million humans
alone in Germany with an influenza, and roughly 15,000 dies at
the subsequent illnesses. And even if I do not divide the estimate
of a briefly which is approaching H5N1-Pandemie, that is not to
mean that politicians could back-lean. Because it is very probable
that the next Pandemie will come, even if nobody can predict,
when, by which virus variant she is released, and whether her
stronger or moderate than 1918 will be.
anonymous, thank you for posting that. It is very interesting and rich in content. Well worth reading!
I believe his argument goes like this. He doubts that Taubenberger’s current results conclusively points to the 1918 virus as more avian like than human like, that one needs to compare with pre-1918 samples to know that. (Whereas Taubenberger believes that it is possible to conclude that by extrapolation).
So if he doesn’t believe that 1918 was an avian virus that directed infected humans, then the current H5N1 is unlikely to directly become a human pandemic virus either.
That is a very important alternative opinion of the existing data.
Interesting….
..but the whole interview sounds a bit to me that he says what he says, because panicing is not good.
Of course, historically we have no example for a H5-pandemic nor for a flu-pandemic worse than 1918, so you needn’t argue with where H5N1 came from. The historic argument stands anyway. That H5N1 had had enough time but didn’t go pandemic is not so clear, because H5N1 is still advancing and it had had no opportunities yet to adapt to humans. Although,…, the amount of recombination and reassortment seems to go down the last years
Thank you anonymous. I sincerely appreciate this point of view and comments by the experts. I will not likely let my guard down in the near term. But the sky does clear a little, with information like this. At least in regard to High Path H5N1.
I’m always interested in what the experts have to see and would appreciate any comment here.
..I just read an alternative opinion with possible billion deaths here:
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=62466