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If I was ever under the delusion that the universe was designed to make my life easier, these last few years have straightened me out. The avian influenza is the one I'm keeping my eyes on since I live with birds.
There are reasons that avian influenza doesn't spread well in humans. These reasons include the tissues that the virus infects and the temperature and PH of the infected tissue. However, the virus does hop into mammals occasionally - and some recent outbreaks in minks and other species indicate that it is spreading among them, rather than being transmitted from an infected bird to an individual mammal. So that suggests the virus has picked up at least some mutations favorable for human-to-human spread. The other concerning factor is that pigs are a host for both avian and human influenza virus, and influenza is a mutatin' fool. The virus can mix and match its genetic material if a pig is infected with more than one virus, as it did with the 2009 influenza strain that had human, bird, and pig virus genes. And since we've shown a marked disinterest in surveying wildlife prior to outbreaks, we'll be taken by surprise as we were with SARS-CoV-2. However, SARS-CoV-2, with a mortality rate in the low single digits, is a real sweetheart compared to HPAI that kills over 50% of the infected. We got off easy in 2020 even though it sometimes didn't feel that way. If HPAI starts spreading easily between humans, we're going to need a lot more than the gear I'm currently sporting. Comments are closed.
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