Bird flu virus

Bird flu virus

Context: While authorities are struggling to ascertain how the 11- year-old boy who died of bird flu in Gurugram contracted the infection, a team of Indian researchers  in a totally unconnected work has shown that some strains of bird flu virus are close to acquiring the ability to infect higher order animals such as mammals.

Concept:

• The study, carried out by the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) in Bhopal, a constituent laboratory of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR),
• This is one of the first studies to report mammalian adaptation markers in H9N2 virus isolated from birds found around five wetlands in Maharashtra.
• The study showed the exposure the virus to humans, which appeared in Infection, Genetics and Evolution, is important because it showed that H9N2 viruses have already acquired adaptation markers which might facilitate human infection in case of direct exposure to humans or by way of mixing genes with other influenza viruses (through what is called genomic assortment such as highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1, Scientists unravel propensity of avian flu virus to infect humans and H7N9, among others.
• The scientists found the presence of H9N2 virus in around 4 per cent samples they tested.
• These wetlands fall in the route of a major migratory route Central Asian Flyway
• The mutation can spread to other geographies.
• The influenza viruses are quite show host specificity, but when avian influenza viruses continue to circulate in different avian hosts, they might acquire some mutations (changes in their RNA), which facilitate their spill over to humans