EU wants co-ordination and investigation of animal and avian health

March 25, 2010
EU wants co-ordination and investigation of animal and avian health. Currently there are few people who do not know that the new human flu virus H1N1, which has scared me so much, it was reported before in birds and pigs and that the bird flu virus at poultry, causing economic disaster where it occurs, in addition to being a latent threat to humans.

The reality is that viruses do not distinguish between human and animal hosts. All that take into account are receptors outside the cell from which it may be contested and thus multiply within them to survive. Receptors and birds, mammals and humans are quite similar to the flu virus to jump from each other, giving place to potentially dangerous mutations, noted the newspaper El Pais.

Thus viruses do not distinguish between their human or animal hosts. Pig is seen as a 'cocktail viral' and became a clear objective of the study. For all this, and because diseases do not already have border, the EU believes that it is time to face the flu in a uniform manner, coordinating the investigation in both animal and in human health, in collaboration with countries including neuropene.

'We can not sit with crossed hands, "says Etienne Bonbon, health specialist of the European Commission. "It is a complex issue, but must do ', he added. At stake is not only able to prevent a possible outbreak among humans in time of peace (when available) but also the development of new drugs to treat it when it occurs. Long-term strategy is the answer to this inquiry to be faster than before.

'It should be noted that Europe is the largest provider of vaccines in the world with 70% of the total, "said Etienne Bonbon. "We need a new approach to the flu, provide Ilaria Capua, director of the Institute of Experimental Zooprofilactic in Venice, where experts gathered recently to present European initiatives.

"All viruses originate in wild birds and moving to intermediate hosts.
Pig plays a key role in enabling cells that are multiplying viruses of birds and wild mammals', stresses Capua. When two viruses infect the same cell distinct, individual genes (grouped into 8 segments) recombine into a new virus, which has characteristics of both 'parents' is, as sexual reproduction. "The combination of genetic offspring is impossible to predict," explains the Italian expert.

Therefore be watched closely what happens in 'viral cocktail' which is a pig, but not be weakened attention to the new avian influenza virus, highly pathogenic, which can delete the entire poultry farms on the map in a country where urgent action is taken. 'You must study all the genes of viruses, each virus has not been studied separately, "says Capua.

"Knowledge is a tool and what we want is to include new scientific knowledge and continuous progress, especially in times of peace ', says Isabel Mínguez and specialist European Commission.

An example of this policy is the new platform Emperor, a network of laboratories of excellence around the world, for cataloging human or animal viruses that can cater for new emerging diseases outbreaks. The Spanish part Luis Enjuanes laboratory virologists from the National Center for Biotechnology (CSIC).