I read this in the express newspaper!
 
EXPERTS are on the verge of ending the misery of millions with a cure for
flu o thanks to ferrets.
 
The animals o who are as vulnerable to the virus as humans o stopped
coughing and sneezing, and their soaring temperatures returned to normal
after they were spoon-fed a new drug.
 
The medicine o code-named GS4104 o does not kill the virus, but prevents it
from infecting neighbouring cells, which halts the symptoms that plagued
thousands of Britons over Christmas and caused a number of deaths.  Now
scientists at a U.S.  pharmaceutical firm want to start tests on humans to
see if they have the same response.
 
Writing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society researcher Choung
Kim says the drug inhibits the action of an enzyme produced by the influenza
virus.  This instantly stops it jumping from one cell to another.
 
If the drug proves to be successful in humans it could be the end of one of
the most elusive, and most lethal, infectious diseases of the 20th century.
The worst outbreak the worldwide pandemic of 1918 and 1919, killed 21
million.  There are countless tales of soldiers who survived World War One
only to die of flu at home.
 
First proof that flu was an infectious viral disease came 20 years later
when a researcher in London accidentally sneezed on a ferret who rapidly
went down with the virus.
 
The U.S. scientists say that their drug might help stave off any future
pandemic as they claim that it works for all strains of the virus.
 
                        Dave
[Posted in FML issue 1840]