Mutations in bird flu increase threat to mammals

Chicks for sale in a Vietnamese market – a practice stopped during the 2004 bird flu outbreak Copyright: Mike Shanahan / SciDev.Net

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Mutations in bird flu increase threat to mammals</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><P>The bird flu virus is mutating and becoming more dangerous to mammals, say researchers. A study, published this week in the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA</em>, shows that over recent years, the virus’s ability to kill infected mice has increased. </P><br />
<P>The investigators took 21 different virus samples isolated since 1997 and used them to inoculate mice. They found that the most recent virus samples killed mice faster than those from earlier years. All of the samples were of a strain of bird flu called HN51, which killed 23 people in Asia earlier this year.</P><br />
<P>Although humans can contract and die of the disease, they cannot transmit it to other people. But researchers fear that future mutations — or hybridisation with the human flu virus — may enable the virus to spread from person to person.</P><br />
<P><a  href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3849127.stm" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full BBC Online news story</A></P></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/news/mutations-in-bird-flu-increase-threat-to-mammals-seaap/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/news/mutations-in-bird-flu-increase-threat-to-mammals-seaap/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

The bird flu virus is mutating and becoming more dangerous to mammals, say researchers. A study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, shows that over recent years, the virus’s ability to kill infected mice has increased.

The investigators took 21 different virus samples isolated since 1997 and used them to inoculate mice. They found that the most recent virus samples killed mice faster than those from earlier years. All of the samples were of a strain of bird flu called HN51, which killed 23 people in Asia earlier this year.

Although humans can contract and die of the disease, they cannot transmit it to other people. But researchers fear that future mutations — or hybridisation with the human flu virus — may enable the virus to spread from person to person.

Link to full BBC Online news story