Chinese researchers uncover new viruses, tip on another pandemic may start soon

Chinese researchers have uncovered new viruses, suggesting on another pandemic starting soon despite battling with COVID-19 pandemic.

Onyxnews Nigeria reports that a group of infectious diseases researchers have discovered a new strain of viruses amongst pigs in China, where coronavirus was first detected and fear that it might evolve to readily transmit between humans.

Robert Gordon Webster, an avian influenza authority who correctly posited that pandemic strains of flu arise from genes in flu virus strains in nonhuman, explained that an influenza investigator who recently retired from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, US, said it is a “guessing game” as to whether this strain will mutate to become a pandemic.

The last swine flu outbreak which occurred in 2009 in Mexico, was far less deadly than initially assumed. This was as a result of many older people being immune to it, probably because of its similarity to other flu viruses that had circulated years before.

And, Kin-Chow Chang, a professor who works at Nottingham University in the UK, said “While this new virus is not an immediate problem. We should not ignore it.”

The virus is to be a special 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.

So far, the world is still fighting with the deadly coronavirus with over 10 million cases in the world. In Nigeria’s case, according to Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the country has recorded up to twenty-five thousand, one hundred and thirty-three(25,133) coronavirus cases, nine thousand, four hundred and two (9,402) discharged and five hundred and seventy-three (573) deaths cases.