|Scientists fear mild swine flu could mutate| |Wednesday, 06 May
2009 18:47| TOKYO--Swine flu has reached Asia, with South Korea
reporting its first suspected case yesterday. Like the vast
majority of other cases outside of Mexico so far, it is mild,
but virologist Kennedy Shortridge warns that is no reason for
complacency. He says that the farther the virus spreads, the
more chance it will mix, or reassort, with other flu viruses in
circulation and turn into something more lethal. "The prospects
for change [in the virus] are considerable and worrying," he
says. Shortridge is a professor emeritus at the University of
Hong Kong, where he led investigations into the initial
emergence of H5N1 avian influenza in 1997, when it killed six of
the 18 people it infected. The city squelched that outbreak by
slaughtering all 1.4 million chickens and ducks in the
territory. H5N1 re-emerged in 2003 and since then has claimed
257 lives while devastating poultry flocks throughout much of
Asia and parts of Africa. Shortridge