A super-strain of bird flu that could infect and wipe out millions will not be published by the virologist developers. Dutch scientists who created ‘probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make' have agreed to leave out details on how to construct the virus from published reports. But the scientists warned that the data had already been shared with hundreds of researchers.
Their research focused on what it took to convert bird flu – which can kill more than half of those infected but does not spread easily – into a highly contagious virus.
Developer Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, said this knowledge would be vital for the development of vaccines and drugs to prevent a possible pandemic.
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