Poultry products exported by the Atlanta - based company are also challenged as a result of
the avian influenza virus, which has led to many countries worldwide to close their doors to poultry imports altogether.
It is feared that if
the avian influenza virus combines with a human influenza virus (in a bird or a human), the new subtype created could be both highly contagious and highly lethal in humans.
In February 2004,
avian influenza virus was detected in birds in Vietnam, increasing fears of the emergence of new variant strains.
As controversy rages around the scientists who created mutant strains of the H5N1
avian influenza virus, leading flu researchers have called for a 60 - day voluntary pause on such work.
The H7N9
avian influenza virus was first reported in humans in March 2013 in China.
Why would scientists deliberately create a form of the H5N1
avian influenza virus that is probably highly transmissible in humans?
A laboratory test showing airborne transmission of the H7N9
avian influenza virus between the animals has raised fears that the virus is poised to become a human pandemic.
The current H5N1 strain is a fast - mutating, highly pathogenic
avian influenza virus (HPAI) found in multiple bird species.
A new version of the H7N9
avian influenza virus might be able to cause widespread infection and should be closely monitored, scientists say, although it currently doesn't spread easily between people.
Ebright: Future work with lab - generated transmissible
avian influenza viruses should be performed only at the highest biosafety level, only at the highest biosecurity standard, and only after approval by, and under the oversight of, a national or international review process that identifies risks and benefits, weighs risks and benefits, mitigates risks, and manages risks.
One of the top science stories of 2012 involved a furore about the wisdom of enhancing the transmissibility of the H5N1
avian influenza virus in ferrets.
However, compared to other
avian influenza viruses, the attachment to epithelial cells by H7N9 in the bronchioles and alveoli of the lung was more abundant and the viruses attached to a broader range of cell types.
They found that like other
avian influenza viruses, the H7N9 viruses attached more strongly to lower parts of the human respiratory tract than to upper parts.
Now researchers report new evidence for such a link: Mice infected with the H5N1
avian influenza virus lose the same dopamine - releasing neurons that are destroyed by Parkinson's disease.
The duck genome and transcriptome provide insight into
an avian influenza virus reservoir species
In 2011, it became embroiled in heated debates about «gain - of - function» experiments with the deadly
avian influenza virus H5N1 that made it more transmissible in mammals.
AMSTERDAM — Antibody tests now show that at least 1000 people contracted
an avian influenza virus during a massive poultry outbreak in the Netherlands last year — many more than assumed.
«As the risks of such research and its publication are debated by the community, I argue that we should pursue transmission studies of highly pathogenic
avian influenza viruses with urgency,» he writes in Nature.
Two groups of scientists who carried out highly controversial studies with
the avian influenza virus H5N1 have reluctantly agreed to strike certain details from manuscripts describing their work after having been asked to do so by a U.S. biosecurity council.
At the request of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, Science and Nature have agreed to strike key details from papers in press describing how researchers made the deadly H5N1
avian influenza virus more transmissible between mammals.
The study made many headlines, in part because of the fear that the H5N1
avian influenza virus, which so far transmits poorly between humans, could undergo a similarly fateful transformation.
«Ferrets, pigs susceptible to H7N9
avian influenza virus.»
They exposed plasma from the samples to purified proteins of
avian influenza virus H3, H4, H5, H6, H7, H8 and H12 subtypes using two laboratory tests to see how many different viruses participants reacted to, and how strongly.
The potential public health implication of this observation is that a person infected by H7N9
avian influenza virus who does not show symptoms could nevertheless spread the virus to others.
The strain likely resulted from a reshuffling of several
avian influenza viruses circulating in domestic ducks and chickens, Guan's group reported in 2013.
Almost a year after they announced it, leading influenza researchers are ending a voluntary moratorium on certain types of controversial experiments involving the H5N1
avian influenza virus.
By comparing gene expression in the lungs of ducks infected with either highly or weakly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses, the team identified genes whose expression patterns were altered in response to
avian influenza viruses.
Using a laboratory technique called real - time reverse transcription - PCR to examine the virus's genetic blueprint, they found
avian influenza virus (AIV) genetic material in eight samples - six adult penguins and two chicks.
As a controversial study of the H5N1
avian influenza virus published online today in Science shows, researchers are keenly interested in how mutations in the virus» genes might enable it to become transmissible in humans.
Avian influenza virus H7N9, which killed several dozen people in China earlier this year, has not yet acquired the changes needed to infect humans easily, according to a new study by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI).
The extracellular domain of the H5 or H7 protein of the respective
avian influenza viruses was transplanted into the Newcastle disease virus vaccine strain LaSota in order to make the vaccine constructs.
The human influenza virus H1N1 that caused the 2009 flu pandemic, and H9N2,
an avian influenza virus that is endemic in bird populations in Asia, are close cousins — close enough that they can swap genes if they find themselves in the same cell, resulting in new viruses that are a patchwork of the parent strains.
This week, two research groups are independently reporting results that help explain why the H5N1
avian influenza virus is so lethal to humans but so difficult to spread.
When the researchers exposed chickens to lethal doses of
the avian influenza virus and the Newcastle virus, birds inoculated with the recombinant vaccine produced antibodies against both viruses, offering protection against both diseases.
But Tompkins warns that repeated vaccinations with distinct hemagglutinins would probably be needed to protect birds from the many strains of
avian influenza virus.
The gene, called H5, is one of 16 subtypes of hemagglutinin, a protein that binds
the avian influenza virus to the cells it infects.
The mouse is described in a study, «In vivo evasion of MxA by
avian influenza viruses requires human signature in the viral nucleoprotein,» that will be published April 10 in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.
This protein can protect cultured human cells from
avian influenza viruses but is ineffective against strains that have acquired the ability to infect humans.
Insights into
Avian Influenza Virus Pathogenicity: the Hemagglutinin Precursor HA0 of Subtype H16 Has an Alpha - Helix Structure in Its Cleavage Site with Inefficient HA1 / HA2 Cleavage
Two investigators whose controversial studies on deadly
avian influenza viruses are among 11 on hold welcomed the end of the pause.
Similar to the results obtained with cultured human cells, the transgenic mice were resistant to
avian influenza viruses but susceptible to flu viruses of human origin.
The current epizootic in the Far East caused by
avian influenza virus A (H5N1) has led to real concern about the possibility of a new pandemic of influenza.12 Technological innovation, such as the use of new vaccines delivered by the intradermal route, offers great promise to change and improve on current immunization strategies.
One of the greatest influenza pandemic threats at this time is posed by the highly pathogenic H5N1
avian influenza viruses.
LA JOLLA, CA — December 5, 2013 —
Avian influenza virus H7N9, which killed several dozen people in China earlier this year, has not yet acquired the changes needed to infect humans easily, according to a new study by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI).
The virus is almost identical to a strain of
avian influenza virus reported in Asia and may have spread to dogs in live bird markets, said AVMA.
As dogs have been infected with both mammalian and
avian influenza viruses, they have the potential to act like pigs, as «mixing vessel» hosts for the generation of new strains.
Wild birds worldwide carry
avian influenza viruses in their intestines, but usually do not get sick from them.
This canine virus likely arose through the direct transfer of
an avian influenza virus — possibly from among viruses circulating in live bird markets — to dogs.
Highly pathogenic
avian influenza virus H5N1, which causes severe respiratory disease in humans, has been diagnosed in dogs and cats.
H7N2 is a type of
avian influenza virus that can mutate and transfer to mammals, such as cats.