New influenza virus with 'pandemic potential' found in China
This strain has recently emerged and has pigs as hosts, but it can infect humans, say the research authors.
Scientists are concerned that it could mutate even more and spread easily from person to person and thus trigger a global outbreak.
They say the strain has "all characteristics" of being highly adaptable to infect humans and needs to be monitored closely.
Since this is a new strain of the influenza virus, which causes the flu, people may have little or no immunity to it.
A new strain of influenza is among the main threats that experts are monitoring, even as the world still tries to end the current pandemic of the new coronavirus.
The last pandemic flu the world faced, the 2009 swine flu outbreak that started in Mexico, was less deadly than initially feared, mainly because many older people had some immunity to it, probably because of its similarity to others influenza viruses that had been circulating years before.
