According to latest report, the Chinese pigs are becoming infected with a strain of influenza that has the potential to jump to humans, could mutate further so that it can spread easily from person to person and trigger a global outbreak, a new study has found.
The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on an influenza virus named G4. G4 is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009.
The virus is a unique blend of three lineages: one similar to strains found in European and Asian birds, the H1N1 strain that caused the 2009 pandemic, and a North American H1N1 that has genes from avian, human, and pig influenza viruses.
A team led by Liu Jinhua from the China Agricultural University (CAU) analysed nearly 30,000 nasal swabs taken from pigs at slaughterhouses in 10 Chinese provinces and 1,000 swabs from pigs with respiratory symptoms seen at their school’s veterinary teaching hospital from 2011 to 2018.
The swabs collected yielded 179 swine influenza viruses, the vast majority of which were G4 or one of five other G strains from the Eurasian avianlike lineage.
The researchers carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans such as fever, coughing and sneezing.
They found that G4 was highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses. Tests also showed that any immunity humans gain from exposure to seasonal flu does not provide protection from G4.