From the pandemic of bird flu, humanity has saved 5 mutations
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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The bird flu virus H5N1 is able to kill, but, fortunately, is not transmitted from person to person, which saved us from a pandemic.
Ron Fuschier from the Medical Center. Erasmus (the Netherlands) and his colleagues showed that the world was separated from the catastrophe by only five genetic mutations. They allowed the virus to be transmitted between laboratory mammals, while remaining as deadly.
"The virus was transmitted as effectively as seasonal flu," the researcher told the participants of the conference on influenza in Malta.
H5N1 was detected in 2004 in East Asia in poultry; soon it spread throughout Eurasia. Infected 565 people, 331 died. Despite millions of infected birds, as well as infections in humans, cats and pigs, a strain that can be transmitted between mammals has not arisen. Attempts to create it in the laboratory were unsuccessful, and some virologists concluded that H5N1 simply could not produce such a strain.
The new work shows the opposite. First, scientists called three mutations H5N1, which allowed him to adapt to mammals. This version killed ferrets (which react to influenza viruses in the same way as humans), but not transmitted from one animal to another.
Then, viruses isolated from the ferret patients were transplanted to other ferrets (a standard technique for obtaining pathogens adapted to animals). The procedure was repeated ten times. In the tenth round, a strain emerged that could be transmitted between ferrets that sat in different cages. And he who killed them.
As a result, many strains with a large number of new mutations were formed, but two of them were in all viruses. To these two scientists added three more; Henceforth, H5N1 will be tested only with these five varieties.
All these mutations have already been detected in birds - but separately. "But if they arise separately, they can arise together," says Mr. Fushier.
The results of the study caused lively disputes. Opponents who are convinced that the H5N1 is unable to adapt to mammals indicate that the ferrets are not humans, noticing that if the virus could mutate in this way, he would have done it already. Other virologists do not consider either one or the other to be a weighty argument.
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