News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Chinese researchers who tested reassortants that combined the 2009 H1N1 virus with H9N2, a subtype that commonly circulates in birds, found that several were more pathogenic then the parent viruses, which they said could pose a pandemic threat.

(CIDRAP News) – A laboratory at Hong Kong University (HKU) detected a reassortant made up of a swine influenza virus and the pandemic H1N1 virus in a sample obtained from a slaughterhouse pig as part of a surveillance program, officials announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today confirmed the pandemic H1N1 flu virus in a sample from a Minnesota pig, marking the first detection of the virus in pigs in the United States.

(CIDRAP News) – Government officials and researchers may have underestimated the potential role of pigs as "mixing vessels" for influenza viruses and the importance of swine surveillance for identifying new pandemic threats, veterinary experts from Mexico asserted recently.