Word: osterhaus
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...Asia, there is no program in place to systematically sample migratory birds to determine which viruses they carry. In Europe, virologist Albert Osterhaus of Erasmus University in the Netherlands has launched a survey in which fecal samples are submitted from around the continent for testing. "We've found the proteins that indicate the presence of various avian influenzas," says Osterhaus. The prevalence of viruses in migratory birds may have been responsible for an avian-flu outbreak in the Netherlands last year that infected 80 people, killing one. The virus responsible, an H7, which was less deadly than the H5 strain...
...soon De Jong was also convinced. That night he spoke with Albert Osterhaus, chairman of the virology department at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, where virologist Eric Claas had analyzed the suspect virus using a panel of reagents derived from flu strains isolated and maintained by Webster. Claas had first determined that the virus was H5N1, well before the CDC and Mill Hill. At the outset even he did not believe it. An H5 infection in humans was unheard of. He too assumed the H5 was a contaminant...
Meanwhile Osterhaus had called Webster in Memphis to learn more about H5. Only then, in that phone call, did the human-flu research community at last learn of the earlier outbreak of chicken flu on the three Hong Kong farms; and only then did Webster and Shortridge learn of the first human case--even though Shortridge's laboratory and Lim's are housed in adjacent buildings...
Webster already had the virus in his collection, its genetic structure detailed, its heritage mapped. He recalls, with obvious delight, how he told Osterhaus, "Abe, I have the precursor of this virus in my laboratory...
...concedes, however, that he was startled when Osterhaus told him about the three-year-old boy who had died on May 21, the day after Lim received his specimen. Webster also wondered whether the H5 was merely a contaminant. Osterhaus assured him it was not. After the call, Webster taped a note to the wall over his desk: H5 IN A CHILD...