CDC Says Bird Flu Becoming More Contagious

August 13, 2008

Written by Stowe | Friday, 01 August 2008

In America the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say

that the bird flu virus is changing and that it is developing strains

and properties which could possibly increase the potential of it to

infect humans from birds. They also said that it was also developing

into a virus which could become more contagious between humans.

The research was done on the Influenza A H7 virus types which are very

contagious to birds but must not be mixed up with with the extremely

deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. Nevertheless it is worth noting that if an

H7 bird flu virus mutates it is likely that the H5N1 variant of the

virus will also be able to follow suit.

Dr. Belser who led the research project for the Centres for

Disease Control and Prevention explained that it is perfectly normal

for influenza viruses to constantly change and in view of the fact

that there is the scare of a deadly bird flu outbreak is very

important that they are watched extremely carefully at the moment.

Humans get infected by the influenza virus when it attaches itself to

sugar receptor molecules that are found in the respiratory tract. The

greater the particular influenza viruses' ability to latch onto these

receptors the more contagious they are to humans and the more likely

they are to spread quickly among groups of people. Present the deadly

H5N1 and the H7 variants of the virus can not latch on to these

receptors easily and thus they are not very contagious.

This new research however explains that three H7N2 strains as well as

two H7N3 strains of the influenza virus found in North America were

seen to be able to latch themselves onto receptors in both birds and

humans. In particular one of the H7N2 virus strains was found to have

the biggest ability to bind onto human sugar receptors in the

respiratory tract.

This research underlines the importance of close monitoring of all

bird flu viruses so that the world can prepare itself for any deadly

pandemics which could break out as a result of mutating influenza

viruses. The research was published by the respected medical journal

the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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