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London, Dec. 30 (Reuters): The World Health Organisation issued a stern warning today to scientists who have engineered a highly pathogenic form of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, saying their work carries significant risks and must be tightly controlled.
The UN health body said it was “deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences” of work by two leading flu research teams who this month said they had found ways to make H5N1 into a easily transmissible form capable of causing lethal human pandemics.
The work by the teams, one in the Netherlands and one in the US, has already prompted an unprecedented censorship call from US security advisers who fear that publishing details of the research could give potential attackers the know-how to make a bio-terror weapon.
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