Quorn virus sparks fears of new epidemic

The food industry was reeling last night as news was breaking that a new strain of the Quorn flu virus had been detected in the UK.

The virus strain H04X was detected in packages of Quorn sausages in an unnamed British supermarket. Rumours that it was also found in Quorn mince were quashed by officials.

Quorn, which gets its name from the Latin word for rodent, quornus, is made from mechanically recovered red squirrel meat and is the staple protein food of many vegetarians, who mistakenly think that is derived from a species of fungus grown in buckets. Actually, the fungus is first eaten by the squirrels, which are hunted primarily for their fur. The carcasses are then passed to the Quorn food processing company.

It is thought that the virus entered the UK in a squirrel that was parachuted from a small light aircraft in a cocaine smuggling operation. The squirrel entered the wild population in a Kent woodland, and died - scientists think - when the condom containing that cocaine that it had swallowed burst.

Unfortunately, the virus had already been propagated, and scientists now fear that the wild population of red squirrels in the British Isles will never recover. This means that the Quorn industry will have to rely on imported squirrel meat, or meat from the inferior grey squirrel (or "rat").