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# 46 of 5,520
Filed under: BALTIMORE , Kelly Brooks , Bird Flu

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Avian flu — the H5N1 virus experts think could out-kill the infamous 1918 pandemic flu — mutates every time it infects a human, according to new research out of Thailand.

Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Greger, of Rockville, warns the bug only needs to find a way to move from person to person, and mutation is its tool of trade.

“We know another pandemic is inevitable; we don’t know when, we don’t know how bad it will be,” said Greger, director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Washington, D.C.-based Humane Society of the United States. “What this new research can show is what mutations we should be concerned about.”

Scientists in Thailand discovered certain mutations in the bird flu — which currently does not transmit efficiently from person to person — that could spark a pandemic.

Their study of specimens from three fatal human cases involving H5N1, a “highly pathogenic” type of avian influenza virus, was published recently in the Journal of General Virology.

“Such adaptations may lead to the emergence of a virus that can cause a pandemic,” Dr. Prasert Auewarakul said in a statement.

Auewarakul and four other scientists from Mahidol University in Thailand conducted the research and wrote the paper.

They said their research highlights the need to control infection and transmission to humans to prevent further adaptations.

The virus referred to in the paper has killed hundreds of millions of birds in the past 10 years, but only a few hundred people, said Greger, author of “Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.”

“That shouldn’t give us too much solace,” he said. The virus has a 60 percent human fatality rate, and if H5N1 doesn’t trigger the next pandemic, another type will, he added.

San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company Vical presented preliminary data from a trial of H5N1 pandemic flu DNA vaccines at a conference at the National Harbor in Prince George’s County.

Scientists, however, still need to reduce the lag time, or the number of months it would take to vaccinate people once a pandemic occurs, Greger said. “The earlier, the better in terms of pandemic preparedness.”

# 46 of 5,520

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Mexico prohibits poultry imports from Arkansas over bird flu outbreak

MEXICO CITY: Mexico is banning poultry imports from Arkansas because of a bird flu outbreak in the U.S. state.

The Agricultural Department says poultry meat, fertilized eggs, song birds and messenger pigeons are banned indefinitely.

comment: want to back up and let that one sink in. I can't remember any recent or honestly ever hearing of an indefinite ban of anything. Why ban of a cannot hurt humans at all virus in all the meat, eggs, and even the birds themselves? This is kinda of a first. Feel free to comment on this. I would like to know of any permanent Avian bans. Has anyone ever heard and an indefinite ban in Avian History ever?

Avian influenza cases led to the destruction of 15,000 hens inwestern Arkansas earlier this(last - old aritcle)  month. The virus strain was not harmfulto humans.

comment; over and over again. low path in bird can become high path rapidly and when the cleanup squad goes in and preceding almost every human bird flu outbreak, there has been a fair massive bird flu outbreak.

So we can all rest easier knowing that its a big thumbs down from experts on the negligible dangers of a recent mutation in H7 making it more adapted to infesting humans. We all know, as per Avian experts there is no high path in humans. I was told it is only in birds. But  then of course missing mentioning that it has been fatal at least one person kind of ruins the placebo effect.

But back to the lurking, insomnia-producing threat: Even though theH7 virus isn’t very dangerous for humans, scientists say it appears tobe evolving in our direction. Flu viruses bind toa sugar on respiratory tract cells called sialic acid, which comes inseveral shapes. Last week US scientists reported that H7 viruses fromrecent poultry outbreaks in North America are starting to bind thehuman form of sialic acid, and losing their ability to bind the birdform. Even worse, an H7 was even isolated from a man with the flu inNew York in 2003 and it bound most effectively to the human form [New Scientist blog].

There is my Yonker's guy I always post about. It is because we had a case of Avian in the U.S. in a person which actually occured in 2002, but it wasn't tested properly, so it appeared in 2003. I am always pulling this event out of CDC and CIDRAP'S archives and then it flickers and disappears again.