Nearly a year after the first cases of avian flu were detected in US cattle, the authorities have announced the first human fatality from the disease, on Monday, January 6 in Louisiana. Health authorities and researchers are closely examining the mutations found in the virus extracted from the 65-year-old man, who was infected through contact with backyard birds contaminated by wild birds. The pressing question now is whether avian flu poses a serious threat to human health.
To analyze how well this avian-origin influenza virus has adapted to mammals, and specifically to humans, “researchers are actively monitoring around 70 mutations whose functions are known,” explained Gilles Salvat, the deputy director general of the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES). Particular attention is being given to mutations affecting three specific segments of the virus.
Firstly, there’s hemagglutinin (the “H” in H5N1), the entry protein, which the virus uses to bind to cells, to stabilize itself for airborne transmission and to help it bind better to the cells in the human upper respiratory tract. Secondly, neuraminidase (the “N” in H5N1), the exit protein, which enables the virus to detach itself from the infected cell. And finally, polymerase, an enzyme that helps the virus replicate within cells.
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