The deadly influenza virus currently rampaging in Mexico and other countries is by far transmitted only among humans, rather than widely believed to have originated in pigs, the head of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said Monday.
The virus is a cocktail, which combines the features of swine, bird and human viruses. It is inaccurate to name the disease "swine flu" though the swine flu virus played a part in the outbreak, Bernard Vallat, director general of the Paris-based OIE said in an interview with Xinhua.
Vallat said he is worried about people's misconception about the disease, which was caused in part by its misnomer "swine flu." He said that as the virus is nonexistent before, the disease got its current name in the early stage of the outbreak.
He recommended "North American influenza" as a more reasonable term, as influenza epidemics are customarily named after their places of origin, Spanish flu, for instance.
He noted that the virus has not been found so far in pigs and other animals and it attacked and is transmitted among humans only, and some Mexican urban residents without direct contact with animals were also infected.
This indicates that the virus was not transmitted from animals to humans, he said, adding that disease prevention should be focused on humans and people infected with the virus should be isolated from healthy people.
He also suggested that public gatherings be reduced to the minimum in countries hit by the epidemic.
In Vallat's view, the Mexican government's moves to suspend all sporting events and public gatherings are feasible emergency measures, but in the long term effective treatment is needed and vaccines should be developed as soon as possible.
But he said it will take at least three months before a vaccine becomes available on the market, adding the development, mass production and distribution of vaccines cannot be completed overnight.
The official also noted that the so-called swine flu has nothing to do with bird flu, which was caused by totally different viruses with different targets and means of transmission. Bird flu has caused millions of birds infected and claimed about 200 human lives in the past four years. The relatively low human death toll put it into the category of an animal disease, which seldom spreads among humans, he said.
Vallat said the task now is to identify the origin of this virus as soon as possible, but what is certain is that the term "swine flu" is apparently inaccurate because the real swine flu hardly infects human.
(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2009)
