{"id":630337,"date":"2023-04-17T18:51:08","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T23:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/17\/bird-flu-in-chilean-man-shows-virus-adapting-to-human-spread\/"},"modified":"2023-04-17T18:51:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T23:51:08","slug":"bird-flu-in-chilean-man-shows-virus-adapting-to-human-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/17\/bird-flu-in-chilean-man-shows-virus-adapting-to-human-spread\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird Flu in Chilean Man Shows Virus Adapting to Human Spread"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Cara Murez\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

HealthDay Reporter<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MONDAY, April 17, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Tests done on a Chilean man infected with bird flu showed signs that the virus has partially adapted to spread between mammals. However, the public health risk still remains low, U.S. health officials say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose genetic changes have been seen previously with past H5N1 infections, and have not resulted in spread between people,\u201d Vivien Dugan, acting director of the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told the New York Times.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless, it\u2019s important to continue to look carefully at every instance of human infection, as well as other mammalian spillover events, and to track viral evolution in birds,\u201d Dugan added. \u201cWe need to remain vigilant for changes that would make these viruses more dangerous to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the two mutations seen in the PB2 gene can help the virus replicate in mammals, the samples did not have other genetic changes that would enable the virus to stabilize and bind tightly to human cells, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cThere are three major categories of changes we think H5 has to undergo to switch from being a bird virus to being a human virus,\u201d Richard Webby, a bird flu expert at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital, told the Times<\/i>.<\/strong>\u201cThe sequences from the person in Chile have one of those classes of changes. But we also know that of those three sets of changes, this is the easiest one for the virus to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

No other cases have been linked to the man infected with the virus known as H5N1. His case began with a cough and a sore throat, according to the World Health Organization, which received a report of the man\u2019s illness on March 29 from Chile\u2019s Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s not known how the 53-year-old man was infected, there have been cases in birds and sea lions in the region where he lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the preliminary findings of the local epidemiological investigation, the most plausible hypothesis about transmission is that it occurred through environmental exposure to areas where either sick or dead birds or sea mammals were found close to the residence of the case,\u201d WHO officials said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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The man remains hospitalized. Public health officials think the mutations occurred as the infection spread in his body.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand them [the mutations] to be a step on the path to adaptation to humans and increased risk to humans,\u201d Anice Lowen, an influenza virologist at Emory University in Atlanta, told the Times<\/i>. \u201cSo, certainly, it\u2019s concerning to see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chilean case is the 11th <\/sup>in humans seen since January 2022, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n

The virus has at times spread among mammals, including at a Spanish mink farm last fall and \u201ccontinued sporadic human infections are anticipated,\u201d the CDC said.<\/p>\n

The new mutations are a \u201cstep in the wrong direction,\u201d Lowen said.<\/p>\n

More information<\/strong><\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has more on H5N1.<\/p>\n

SOURCE: New York Times<\/i><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Read More<\/a>
\n Blythe Block<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Menu By Cara Murez\u00a0HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, April 17, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Tests done on a Chilean man infected with bird flu showed signs that the virus has partially adapted to spread between mammals. However, the public health risk still remains low, U.S. health officials say.\u201cThose genetic changes have been seen previously with past H5N1 infections<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93869,94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chilean","category-shows"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}