As health authorities have suspected for some time now, bird flu is consistently being spread between mammals, increasing the risk of sustained outbreaks emerging among humans in the future.
The highly virulent B3.13 form of the H5N1 virus has already led to the culling of 90 million domestic birds in the US alone since 2022. The CDC says the risk to the general public from the H5N1 strain is currently low, with the 11 infected so far in the US reporting mild symptoms.
Yet a single confirmed death of a vulnerable person from the related H5N2 virus in Mexico serves as a stark reminder of the risks involved, should the pathogen evolve.
Of note, the H5N2 virus is a completely different strain of influenza from what this article is about, and this guy, who had severe comorbidities, is the only known person in the entire world to have contracted it. This case is completely unrelated to the H5N1 outbreak, but I guess it “serves as a stark reminder.”
I’m nearly as far from an expert on infectious diseases as it gets, but - and if anyone who knows about influenza reproduction can chime in - I remember reading that influenza has incredible abilities to mutate wildly and recombine. The analogy was like, if human reproduction is like taking two decks of cards and randomly shuffling half of each deck together, then influenza is like taking any number of decks, randomly chopping up and re-splicing portions of random individual cards together, as well as resorting all of them back together without any regard for whether the results are going to even produce anything that can live or not. But the reproductions and randomizations are so voluminous that it doesn’t matter - at least some of it will stick.
In other words, in addition to the wildly rapid mutation capabilities these viruses have - if you have animals that are carrying more than one strain of influenza simultaneously, those two or more strains can produce hybrids.
Of note, the H5N2 virus is a completely different strain of influenza from what this article is about, and this guy, who had severe comorbidities, is the only known person in the entire world to have contracted it. This case is completely unrelated to the H5N1 outbreak, but I guess it “serves as a stark reminder.”
I’m nearly as far from an expert on infectious diseases as it gets, but - and if anyone who knows about influenza reproduction can chime in - I remember reading that influenza has incredible abilities to mutate wildly and recombine. The analogy was like, if human reproduction is like taking two decks of cards and randomly shuffling half of each deck together, then influenza is like taking any number of decks, randomly chopping up and re-splicing portions of random individual cards together, as well as resorting all of them back together without any regard for whether the results are going to even produce anything that can live or not. But the reproductions and randomizations are so voluminous that it doesn’t matter - at least some of it will stick.
In other words, in addition to the wildly rapid mutation capabilities these viruses have - if you have animals that are carrying more than one strain of influenza simultaneously, those two or more strains can produce hybrids.
But again: citation needed.