Human-Adapted Bird Flu? Experts Warn of Alarming Mutations

United States: Researchers have identified mutations in the bird flu virus from a hospitalized teenager in Vancouver that may enhance its ability to infect humans.

However, it appears this mutated strain has not spread beyond the patient.

After examining dozens of potential contacts of teens’ friends, family, and health care providers, “no further cases have been identified,” as stated Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer for British Columbia.

This indicates that the mutated version of the virus has not been spreading or posing a threat to anyone else, CNN Health reported.

However, something the scientists claim may have gotten from this is the fact that the virus is capable of causing these genetic changes if it continues to reproduce.

Hidden threat

The H5N1 bird flu virus that affected the teen – who remains critical but, after being removed from a ventilator, is stable – is not the strain spreading in dairy cattle in the United States.

It is closer to an H5N1 strain that is present in migratory birds, including geese across the Pacific Northwest.

While they are both H5N1, the two are different strains, in the same way that Delta and Omicron are two different variants of the coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 illness.

Furthermore, even now, disease detectives exploring the case still are not sure how the teen contracted the virus, as they had not come into contact with wild birds, CNN Health reported.

What have the experts to say?

The three mutations are in positions in the virus’ genome that Bloom and other scientists have discovered would enable the virus to bind more effectively to cells from humans.

“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,” the expert stated.

Viruses that cause flu incorporate themselves into existing cells by locking on to protruding bumps of sugars known as sialic acids.

Unlike birds, humans express alpha 2,3 sialic acid in abundance, while the human epithelial tissue has alpha 2,6 sialic acid mostly in the respiratory tract, including the nasal passage and throat.

Scott Hensley, a microbiologist and immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who studies flu viruses, says that years of basic research have informed scientists where to look for such changes.