国际英语资讯:Virus strain discovered in Australia could cause worldwide gastroenteritis outbreak_时事

国际英语资讯:Virus strain discovered in Australia could cause worldwide gastroenteritis outbreak

MELBOURNE, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The world could be rocked by a gastroenteritis epidemic in the next two to seven months, Australian experts have warned.

Researchers from the Royal Melbourne Hospital's Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory identified a dangerous strain of the virus norovirus, the most common cause of gastro, in Victoria.

Mike Catton, director of the laboratory, said the strain had mutated since first being identified in August 2015 and could now skip around herd immunity.

国际英语资讯:Virus strain discovered in Australia could cause worldwide gastroenteritis outbreak1

Catton said the strain was responsible for most cases of gastro, a stomach virus that often causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, in Victoria in the last 18 months.

"If this new recombinant has undergone enough change to escape herd immunity and become the next epidemic variant, then from its first detection in Victoria in mid-June 2016, the expected epidemic could be any time between mid-August 2016 and January 2017," the researchers wrote in their findings, published in European journal Eurosurveillance on Friday.

Based on historic data going back 14 years, the researchers said this particular strain could even spread worldwide and become a pandemic.

"If past trends are followed, then it would have the potential to also predominate in other parts of the world," they wrote.

"Based on years of experience monitoring new norovirus strains we think that this new strain is genetically different enough to cause an epidemic," Catton told Fairfax Media on Friday.