afro-perspectives: 📺 NOT KOSHER: Even as they celebrate their annual DOG MEAT FESTIVAL, a NEW strain of FLU found in CHINA has potential to become ANOTHER PANDEMIC, scientists warn

☝️ABOVE: Potential new swine flu pandemic & the barbaric Yulin dog meat festival has opened in defiance of supposed government restrictions in China. Allowing mass gathering in an unhygienic meat market is a public health risk. But, Chinese authorities have done nothing to stop the festival.

Holly Ellyatt | NBC NEWS

KEY POINTS

• The new strain has descended from the type of flu (“swine flu”) that emerged in 2009 causing the first global flu pandemic in 40 years.

• As with swine flu, however, the new strain has been identified as having “all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus.”

• The new strain of flu should be monitored closely, scientists say.

Scientists have identified a new strain of flu carried by pigs in China that they say has the potential to become a pandemic.

The new strain is descended from the type of flu — known as “swine flu” — that emerged in 2009 causing the first global flu pandemic in 40 years.

The scientists published their peer-reviewed findings in U.S. science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. They said the new strain of flu, which they called “G4 EA H1N1,” is a variation of swine flu, and includes the “G4″ genotype that has become predominant in swine populations since 2016.

As with swine flu, the new strain has been identified as having “all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus.”

The scientists, who studied flu viruses in pig populations between 2011 and 2018, noted that around 10% of swine industry workers they tested in China had already been exposed to the virus, which they described as “of concern.” That rate increased among younger workers, aged 18-35, “indicating that the predominant G4 EA H1N1 virus has acquired increased human infectivity.”

“Such infectivity greatly enhances the opportunity for virus adaptation in humans and raises concerns for the possible generation of pandemic viruses,” the scientists, who work at several Chinese universities and the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, noted.

They recommended close monitoring of swine populations — and anyone working with them.

“Controlling the prevailing G4 EA H1N1 viruses in pigs and close monitoring in human populations, especially the workers in swine industry, should be urgently implemented,” they wrote.

“Pigs are intermediate hosts for the generation of pandemic influenza virus. Thus, systematic surveillance of influenza viruses in pigs is a key measure for prewarning the emergence of the next pandemic influenza.”

While “swine flu,” that first emerged in Mexico in 2009, is seen now as one of a variety of seasonal flu viruses and is included in annual flu vaccines, the scientists said that any preexisting population immunity “does not provide protection against G4 viruses.”

MEANWHILE: U.S. Customs Officials Seize Nearly 10 Tons(!) of Prohibited Meats from China
U.S. customs officials intercepted 19,555 pounds of prohibited meat products from China between April 6 and June 6 in Los Angeles, intercepting them before they reached American consumers.

The meat products contained prohibited pork, chicken, beef, and duck. They were packaged in boxes that had other consumer products such as headphones, door locks, kitchenware, trash bags, and cellphone covers, “in a clear attempt to smuggle the prohibited means,” according to a June 19 statement from the U.S Customs and Border Protection (#CBP).