MicrobeWorld

The second of two papers on avian influenza H5N1 virus that caused such a furor in the past year was published today in the journal Science. I have carefully read the paper by Fouchier and colleagues, and I assure you that it does not enable the production of a deadly biological weapon. The results describe the requirements for airborne transmission of influenza viruses among ferrets, but it provides no information about human to human transmission. Failure to publish this work would have substantially restricted our understanding of influenza transmission.