The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that a genetic analysis shows the bird flu virus had mutated inside a Louisiana patient, the country’s first serious case of the disease.
Scientists believe the mutation may allow the virus to better attach to receptors in the upper airways of humans – a finding they say is concerning but not a cause for concern.
Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of Minnesota, liked this lock-and-key conversation. To enter a cell, the virus must have a key that turns the lock, and this discovery means the virus is turning into a key that can work.
“Is this a sign that we may be close to seeing the virus easily transmitted between people? “No,” Osterholm said. “Right now, it’s a key that sits in the lock, but it doesn’t open the door.”
The virus is causing sporadic, mostly mild illness in people in the United States; Almost all of those infected worked on dairy or poultry farms.
A patient in the US state of Louisiana was hospitalized in critical condition with severe respiratory symptoms from bird flu after coming into contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. The man, who has not been identified, is over 65 and has underlying medical problems, officials said earlier this month.
The CDC stressed that there are no known cases of transmission of the virus from a Louisiana patient to anyone else. The agency said its findings about the mutation were “concerning” but that the risk to the general public from the outbreak “has not changed and remains low.”
Still, Osterholm said, scientists should continue to carefully follow what’s happening with the mutation.
“There will be additional influenza pandemics, and they may be much worse than what we saw with COVID,” he said. “We don’t know what time it is.”