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H5N1 Bird Flu Spreads in Germany
Recombinomics Commentary
March 5, 2006
Bird flu reached a sixth German state after the H5NI virus was found in a wild goose in Lower Saxony where a large chunk of the country's poultry breeding farms are located.
The above comments suggest H5N1 bird flu is spreading in Germany. This spread will increase the number of targets for dual infections by H5N1 migrating into western Europe from Africa. Analysis of available sequences show regional differences, which are likely to increase when new sequences arrive from Africa.
Most of the recent sequences are being hoarded in a private WHO database and are not publicly available. The lack of availability limits predictions, because WHO consultants have indicated that the changes in sequence are "random" and not predictive.
This view is not universally shared. Recent H5N1 deposits from China have clear evidence of recombination, which has been acknowledged by the Chinese researchers who generated the sequence.
WHO should immediately release the data for a more complete analysis by the scientific community.
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