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Why bird flu is one step closer to infecting humans, but don’t panic just yet

Avian influenza is one step closer to becoming a human virus after it was found to infect otters and foxes, mutating in a way that allows it to spread more easily among animals.

These mutations also mean that the H5N1 flu virus jumped to humans more quickly, because the more cases there are in mammals, the more likely the virus is to spread to humans, according to a new government report.

There are concerns that mammals could act as an “intermediate species” and transmit the virus from birds to humans.

However, experts said the mutation seen in otters and foxes is unlikely to be significant enough to spread the virus rapidly in these mammalian populations, meaning the risk to humans remains relatively low for now. But it’s definitely worth paying close attention to.

Otters and foxes with the mutation identified in the study are thought to have contracted the virus because they had more contact with infected birds than with other otters and foxes. It is not known to what extent the virus is now being exchanged between foxes and otters.

“This is a reminder that we cannot be satisfied with the need to contain bird flu. But it would be wrong to panic as every flu season we encounter new strains of animals,” said Prof Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick.

The type of mutation in the H5N1 virus that is of much more concern is related to the “spike protein” – the spikes on the outside of viral cells that they use to attach to and enter target animal cells.

The spike protein is known as hemagglutinin, or HA, but such mutations in the H5N1 virus have not yet occurred in mammals.

Instead, the mutations affect the part of the cell that helps the virus replicate.

If H5N1 were to go through the HA mutation, the virus would be much more at risk when entering mammalian populations, which would greatly increase “zoonotic” transmission to humans, who come into contact with these animals much more often than with birds.

From there, the virus can mutate back into humans in such a way that it can quickly spread through the population.

This will complete a process similar to the Covid process. It is believed that it originated from bats and then passed to humans through another animal. It has been suggested that it was a pangolin, although this has yet to be confirmed.

“The discovery of adaptive mutations in intermediate host species is certainly a concern, but it is unlikely that this isolated change will lead to a significant species jump. Fortunately, no changes were found in GA,” said Steve Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds.

“Therefore, the immediate risk associated with these changes is small, but we should not underestimate the ability of influenza or other viruses to move from one species to another,” he said.

According to Professor François Balloux, director of the Institute of Genetics at University College London, bird flu is a constant problem, even if there is no immediate threat.

“Avian flu is a problem. It ranks at the top of the list of pathogens that can cause serious problems and has recently spread like wildfire to domestic and wild bird populations, increasing the risk of it spreading to humans.

“Avian influenza outbreaks would be very nasty, but, ironically, these viruses are so lethal to humans that even if they had the potential for human-to-human transmission, they are unlikely to spread widely and cause a pandemic.” “Because people who get infected will be quickly isolated,” he said.

The currently dominant variant of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, known as 2.3.4.4b, has resulted in the culling of some 4 million birds, including chickens, ducks and turkeys, in the UK and over 100 million birds worldwide.

Of the 1.3 million free-range turkeys produced in the UK before Christmas 2022, around 600,000 have died from bird flu or been culled. If even one case is found, every bird on that farm must be killed.

Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that 868 cases of human infection have been reported over the past 20 years. While previous versions had a human mortality rate of around 60 percent, 2.3.4.4b has a 20 to 40 percent mortality rate compared to 2 percent mortality during the peak of Covid.

What does the UK Health Agency report say?

According to the UKHSA’s first human risk assessment of avian influenza, the virus infected otters and foxes that were in close proximity to infected birds and mutated to spread among those species.

This is not a spike protein, but caused by the PB2 E627K mutation.

This is not the first time a mammal has been infected with the H5N1 virus – mink, otters and foxes have previously been identified in the UK or overseas.

And in the UK last year there was even a case of human infection with the H5N1 virus. The number of human cases of avian influenza is currently incredibly low because the virus is not well adapted to infect humans, meaning that only people with extreme exposure are currently at risk from birds.

Importantly, the UKHSA risk assessment finds the first evidence that the virus has mutated in a way that could facilitate transmission among mammals, resulting in more infected animals coming into contact with humans.

The government report puts the risk of avian influenza to human health at 3 on a scale of 0 to 5.

This means that there is no evidence for this yet, but the concern is that mammals could become an easy reservoir for the virus, which can morph back and become infectious from person to person.

The report notes that “rapid and consistent acquisition of the PB2 mutation in mammals may indicate that this virus is prone to cause zoonotic infections and that the properties of this mutation require further evaluation.”

However, it states that such mutations currently appear to be extremely rare, and there is no evidence that the risk to human health has increased.

“Mutations known to be beneficial in mammalian infections are rare in the available avian virus genome data. The available surveillance data do not indicate a widespread adaptation of this virus in mammals.”

“At the moment there is no indication of an increasing risk to human health, but this is a low confidence estimate. The risk assessment is dynamic and requires regular review during this period of unusually high transmission rates from birds to mammals.”

Risk rating scale used by UKHSA

Level 0 (basic level)
Avian influenza circulates within the normal range in terms of prevalence and with normal epidemiological dynamics among birds.

1st level
Avian influenza circulates among birds with altered epidemiological dynamics and/or increased prevalence.

level 2
Level 1 plus detection of mammalian spills.

Level 3 – where are we now:
Detection of viral genomic changes conferring an advantage in infecting mammals.

level 4
Persistent transmission in non-human mammalian species or evidence in humans and hemagglutinin (HA) mutations allowing transmission. (A single detection in a person exposed to infected birds without HA mutations does not raise the risk level to 4.)

level 5
Any transmission from person to person.

Source: I News

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