A NEW strain of influenza threatens to kill thousands and commit

millions more to their beds this winter, doctors and scientists at a

medical conference in Glasgow were warned yesterday.

The new virus, known as the Beijing 32 variant of influenza A, is

already rampant in Australia and other southern hemisphere areas where

it is currently winter.

Doctors told the 9th International Congress of Virology that current

flu vaccines would be 70% to 80% effective against Beijing 32.

''We are trying to develop a vaccine targeted more specifically

towards it but there is no hope of it being available this winter,''

said flu expert Dr Peter Palese, of Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New

York.

''It will be one of the most severe outbreaks in recent years -- it

isn't going to cut a swathe through the whole population like Spanish

flu did in 1918, but old people, infants, smokers, and others with low

immunity will be vulnerable. It could also cost a lot of working days.''

The good news on flu is that scientists like Dr Palese are devising

new ways of manipulating viruses genetically so that new vaccines can be

developed from them, thereby keeping up with the mutations that help

viruses keep one step ahead of existing vaccines.

Apart from flu, targets include Respiratory Syncytial Virus, the

biggest single cause of hospitalisation of babies. Dr Palese said there

was also a possibility of genetically altering the flu virus to turn it

into a vaccine against malaria.

* Other scientists described genetic intervention in crop plants to

protect them from disease, including making them grow their own

''aspirin''.

They have found a scientific basis to the old wives' tale that an

aspirin in the water prolongs the life of a vase of flowers.

Dr David Baulcome, from the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, described

it as systemic acquired resistance. ''The plant switches on resistance

to viral, fungal, or bacterial disease with a range of proteins . . . a

blunderbuss defence,'' he said.

Part of the mechanism was a signalling system which depended on

salicylic acid, better know as aspirin.

Genetic engineering of foodstuffs is controversial, with

environment-conscious restaurants in America advertising that their food

has not been treated in this way.

However, the scientists pointed out that genetic transformation to

prevent viruses from replicating in plants could reduce the need for

environmentally damaging sprays.

''Plant viruses lead to millions of deaths through famine in the

under-developed world,'' said Dr Jeff Davies, of the John Innes

Institute in Norwich.

''In the developed world we can count the economic cost -- potato

viruses cost millions of pounds in the UK alone -- but you can't put a

price on crops like cassava, eaten by local subsistence farmers. When

crops fail, people die.''

' It will be one of the most severe outbreaks of recent years. '