ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 3 (UPI) — The avian influenza virus originated naturally and is not a biological weapon, a senior Russian scientist has said.

Oleg Kiselyov, director of the Russian Influenza Research Institute, said Thursday, “We have not advanced enough to create such a genetic machine,” the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

If the bird flu virus had been created artificially in order to be used as a biological weapon, scientists would have discovered this, he said.
upi.com

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