In late 2019 and early 2020 the novel Coronavirus SARS-COV-2 broke out and thousands of people died from this disease.
There is an explanation for why:
o Only one region of China was hit hard
o Why Northern Italy and Iran were hit had
o Why Africa has barely been touched.
Hubei province is famously low in soil selenium and thousands of people died there from COVID-19 but in other parts of China the deaths from this disease are in the single digits to low double digits - quite a contrast.
Hubei/Iran/Lombardy are all terribly deficient in selenium. Africa is ripe with the stuff.
That there is a mutation that is endemic to low selenium areas is not news, there is already a precedent. Also from Harbei there are two diseases from the area that are caused by a deficiency of this stuff which caused a mutated version of the virus: Keshan disease and Kashin Beck disease.
"Keshan disease is a congestive cardiomyopathy caused by a combination of dietary deficiency of selenium and the presence of a mutated strain of Coxsackievirus, named after Keshan County of Heilongjiang province, Northeast China, where symptoms were first noted." - Wikipedia.
Even flu does this so it's not exactly unknown. It may be more common than we think; the chances of these being the ony two I'd goues to be small.
2001 UNC: Selenium Deficiency Causes Flu Virus To Mutate Into More Dangerous Forms
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010608081506.htm
Now, this can work in reverse too. Ebola exists in two places on Earth naturally: the African continent and the Philippines. In the latter the genome does not encode for selenium, Phil. isn't particularly packed with the stuff and it it harmless fiving no symptoms or the sniffles. This is know as "Ebola Reston", highly pathogenic to monkeys but not to humans, it's the one that broke out in Reston Virginia. (See the book and movie "The Hot Zone").
OTOH, in Africa in areas of high selenium the virus mutated; Taylor in 1995 showed some unused UGG codons are actuall an ORF (Open Relay Frame, think "subroutine" or "app' in the middle of the genome) that encode ("program") for a homologue (nearly identical dorm) of he human GPx3 (Glutathione Peroxidase III).
GPx3 is the primary lipid protectant. No other chemical guards your body's parts from viral attack as much as this does. The reason Africa Ebola strains are so deadly is because they also make this stuff. In fact they compete for the raw materials, ans in ony a day or so can strip the body of selenium so you can't make any more. Ebola can do in a day what takes HIV 10 years to do.
Now, the reason this doesn't wipe out every person in Africa is because when selenium in th diet is high enough and serum selenium is equal to or greater than 97 mcg/L then it's poisonous to the Ebola virus, that is, Ebola can only exists in a narrow range of selenium. Too little or to much and it can not exist.
Remember in Andromeda Strain? "The bug can only exists in a narrow range of pH - too acid or too alkaline and it can't exist." Same deal.
Areas of very high or very low selenium are problematic as far as viruses are concerned.
