Scientists fear the spread of the avian flu virus
Scientists have discovered mutations in the bird flu virus that could enable it to spread among humans.
This finding came after an adolescent in Vancouver was hospitalized with the disease. However, the virus does not appear to have spread to the patient’s close contacts.
The H5N1 bird flu virus that infected the teenager—whose condition is critical but stable—is not the same strain currently affecting dairy livestock in the United States.
Instead, it is linked to an H5N1 strain circulating among wild birds, such as geese, in the Pacific Northwest.
"Certainly, this is one of the first times that we’ve really seen evidence of these sort of adaptation mutations in H5," said Dr. Jesse Bloom, computational virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
"It’s caught the attention of a lot of flu virologists, including myself, because some of the sequence has evidence of some of the types of mutations we worry about," he said.
(QGA - Source: CNN / Picture: © Pixabay)