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Speaking at a bird-flu conference in Singapore, a U.S. infectious-disease expert said the H5N1 avian-flu virus is the worst flu virus he's ever encountered, and added that a pandemic may prove difficult to control because of deficiencies in knowledge and planning.
"I've worked with flu all my life, and this is the worst influenza virus that I have ever seen," Robert G. Webster, a virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. told the Associated Press.
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When the H5N1 virus infects poultry, it moves into the brain and destroys the respiratory tract -- making the virus a vicious killer, he said.
"If that happens in humans, God help us," Webster said.
Since 2003, there have been about 206 reported human cases of bird flu. Most of those were caused by direct contact with infected birds. But experts worry that the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form that's easily transmitted between humans.
It would take at least 10 more mutations before the H5N1 virus could reach that point, but there's no way to know when, or if, it will happen, Webster told the AP.
He called for more influenza vaccine to be stockpiled and criticized current efforts to build those stockpiles as "miserable."
In related news, the U.S. government announced Thursday that it has awarded $1 billion to five companies to develop and produce cell culture based-influenza vaccines within the country.
Cell culture-based vaccines would provide a quicker way of producing vaccines than the current egg-based technique, which would not be able to meet U.S. demand in the event of a pandemic. Cell culture-based vaccine manufacturing is used in many other modern vaccines.
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