Egyptian toxicologist dismisses virus

Egyptian toxicologist and head of the Life Science Lab in California, US, Gamal Eddine Ibrahim has dismissed the ability of the disease known as "bovine tuberculosis" to infect humans. Dr Ibrahim, who is currently visiting Egypt, spokes to Arabstoday in an interview: "Prevention is better than cure, so the first step is to improve the immune system's performance by ensuring cleanliness; altering one's diet to include fruit, vegetables and fluids which raise immunity and avoid pollutants as much as possible." Ibrahim also warns of believing the disease really is tuberculosis, saying it is a scientific misnomer: "Calling at TB means it's a bacterial infection, but it's actually a viral one similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)." He explains: "This is a viral disease caused be a coronavirus, named for its crown-like shape as seen under the microscope. This family of viruses contains four of five species, some of which cause the common cold in humans in the winter and generally affects mammals and birds' respiratory system. This particular virus causes SARS-like symptoms in humans but affects cattle's digestive system, giving them diarrhea. While I haven't had the opportunity to examine the symptoms exhibited by cattle in Egypt, what veterinarians are describing sounds exactly like this disease's symptoms." Ibrahim reassures us, however: "It's not a very dangerous virus, unless it mutates [and becomes able to jump species] then it becomes dangerous." On preventing infection, he says: "The best way is to avoid cattle faeces by ensuring that the cleanliness of barns and barn workers as much as possible, quarantining infected cattle and not selling them, washing hands and washing vegetables at the source and on point of use. Also, the habit of spitting in the street (which puts the virus back in the air after it dries) must stop, along with sneezing into one's palm and then shaking people by the hand." Dismissing the threat posed to humans by the virus, he says: "This virus hasn't mutated to infect humans directly yet. Its natural hosts are animals and birds at the moment, but it could attack humans indirectly, especially those with compromised immune systems and the elderly. It has only killed 11 people, the last of whom died in the UK three days ago, while the other 10 died last summer, the first in Pakistan, followed by another in Qatar and then five family members in Saudi Arabia who were visiting with the first one. United Nations experts say this is the first recorded case of the virus being passed on between humans. The other three fatalities happened in Jordan." "This virus is not very dangerous at the moment, with adherence to the preventative methods I listed, closely monitoring its development in cattle and humans and accurate diagnosis. The name 'bovine tuberculosis' is therefore dangerous because it could be misleading, with the diagnosis, treatment and preventative methods being geared towards bacteria not viruses, whereas this is a virus according to all the symptoms and according to the World Health Organisation. It is also vital that we make the vaccine for this virus available by either producing it locally or importing it. But anyway the danger to animal products—even though they should be closely monitored—isn't as serious as the media has been making it out to be over the past few days. This virus has lived in the bodies of cattle for years and isn't a surprising development." The toxicologist concludes: "This virus is relatively large one, with a genome between 26 and 32 kilobase and difficult to manipulate in the lab."