“We are aware of the importance of epidemiological surveillance systems, but it is important to emphasize that the virus identified in this study does not, at the moment, pose a danger to human health and the EU does not import pork products from China,” the community source told Lusa, regarding information on the possibility of a new pandemic from a strain of the swine flu virus discovered in China.
China itself has also now minimized the danger of a new pandemic from this strain, discovered in the country by researchers who reported it in a study published on Monday in the American scientific magazine PNAS.
The viruses, detected by scientists from Chinese universities and the Center for Disease Prevention and Control in China, were designated G4, genetically descended from the H1N1 strain, and have “all essential characteristics, showing high adaptability to infect humans”, aiming to this potential to trigger a new pandemic like the one facing the world today, which also started in China.
However, a Chinese diplomacy spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said that “the experts concluded that the sample size cited in the report is small and unrepresentative”, ensuring that the country will continue to “monitor the disease, will alert if it is necessary and will deal with it in time “.
The community source told Lusa that the Commission is monitoring potential zoonotic threats within the EU and in the world, but adds that the study in question does not, so far, present evidence of human-to-human transmission, although it demonstrates that this virus is known by least since 2013.
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