Ukraine Mutated Virus the Same as 1918 Spanish Flu Killer Virus

Respected mainstream virologist, Henry Niman, who would probably consider me to be one of the 'wild conspiracy theorists', in this latest report details the meaning for all of us of the now documented genetic changes occurring in the swine flu in Ukraine and other locations. Essentially, this mutated virus has survial advantage for the virus and virtually duplicates the clinical picture of the killer flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919 that killed upwards of 100 million.

In short, this is very bad news for the world.

In addition to media reports quoting WHO spokesperson, Ukraine also came up in WHO weekly teleconferences on Nov 5 and 12. These notices were carefully worded to exclude large changes in the virus, but left open small changes, including receptor binding domain changes. Such changes were of interest because hundreds of patients had died at a rate and level markedly higher than any other European country, and the descriptions of the fatal cases were detailed, noting severe hemorrhage, as well as the total destruction of both lungs.

Patients had been arriving at emergency departments coughing up blood and dying within a few days. Moreover, most of the patients were previously healthy young adults.The gruesome descriptions and the large number of fatal cases led to wild speculation by conspiracy theorists on one hand and media and political reports such as the one above, claiming that the Ukraine outbreak was small and not unusual.

However, the careful wording of WHO updates clearly left open the possibility of small changes including the receptor binding domain and the D225G change had been predicted, based on the high number of fatalities involving lung hemorrhaging and disintegrating.Yesterday, the sequences from 10 isolates were released at GISAID by Mill Hill and the predicted change, D225G was confirmed. This change had been "in play" and was appearing on multiple H1N1 genetic backgrounds signaling recombination and selective advantage. The recent update of demographics for the 10 patients demonstrated that the four isolates with D225G were the four patients who had died, further raising concerns that D225G on a Ukrainian H1N1 background, or other H1N1 backgrounds could lead to more severe cases and deaths. Moreover the same change had been observed during the 1918-1919 pandemic, which also involved swine H1N1 jumping and adapting to humans.Thus, the genetic change(s) in H1N1 in Ukraine is of considerable concern, media reports and Senator comments, notwithstanding.