Flu virulence linked to species jump
Structural information on the 1918 influenza virus could help control a
future pandemic | By Cathy Holding

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed more people than died in the First
World War-at least 20 million-but why this strain of the disease was so
virulent has remained a mystery. Analysis of the crystal structure of viral
hemagglutinin (HA)-a major surface antigen that mediates binding to the host
cell-shows the 1918 virus antigen is related to the avian antigen,
suggesting that the virulence resulted from a recent chicken/human
cross-species jump.

Alan Hay, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for
Reference and Research on Influenza at the National Institute for Medical
Research (NIMR) and who was not involved in the studies, told The Scientist,
"All this information helps us to understand what sort of changes may
facilitate human infection by an avian virus. The accumulated data that we
have on the structural detail helps us to look for changes which might have
an impact on the ability of these viruses to spread within the [human]
population

Read the rest at The Scientist.com
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040206/01

Comment:
This is a more detailed article on the evolution of viruses than the
previous one I posted - goes into the science more.

Say, where did the chickens get the virus from?  I mean, if the virus can
jump from chickens to humans, and humans have an annual world wide strain of
the disease, isn't it reasonable to assume that at some time the chickens
will catch the virus from humans, making the subsequent strain preadapted to
humans and so more virulent?

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek.
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