H5N1

From TinWiki.org

Influenza virus A is a virus from the Orthomyxoviridae family. There are many strains of this virus but the most common and most well known is H5N1 aka Bird Flu. It is common that the strains and subtypes of Influenza virus A stay in the wild birds, which can easily hold if off with there Superior immune systems, the disease usually lies in the birds intestines, but if not there, then any where from the nose to the lungs, but it is most commonly found in the intestines. The main issue with Influenza virus A is that if it gets into a domestic bird, such as a chicken, which immune system is not as high due to being domesticated, then it could kill it and spread amongst other chickens causing a pandemic. The nick name to the strain is usually derived from the host for example there are Bird flu, Human flu, Swine flu, Horse flu and Dog flu just to name some. A strain of this recently caused a lot of trouble in Hong Kong, this was H3N2.

As mentioned H5N1 is a subtype of the Influenza virus A. It is considered by many as today's leading world threat in terms of disease. The last out break of this was in Hong Kong, China, in 2002, it infected a lot of chickens. H5N1 can harm animals and in some cases Humans. H5N1 aka 'Bird Flu' is most common in birds, hence the name. Although bird flu is mostly found in birds, it is not unheard of for it to infect humans, the main threat then is that, we know it mutates to suite the host and reasssorts it self so that it can spread easier, so if it does this whilst in an infected human it may become a human-to-human disease which could end up being a world epidemic. In 2003 a man named Robert Webster who is a virologist, considered one of the best in the world, published "The world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic that could kill a large fraction of the human population". In this is mentions the progression of the virus and the global threat it posses, he talks about it being a threat to billions of lives.

H5N1 may seem like a weird named, but it all due to its genetic make up. The H5 stands for the fifth of several known types of the protein hemagglutinin. Hemmagglutinin is responsible for holding the virus to the cell that it is infecting. A big problem is that a single amino acid change in the strain could cause it to become the perfect human-to-human disease, hence the name of Mr. Webster's aforementioned article. The N1 stands for the first of several known types of the protein neuraminidase.

1 Infectiousness
2 Asia and DEFRA
3 Cure
4 See Also
5 Relevant Topics On AboveTopSecret.Com
6 External Links

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Infectiousness

Unless a human-to-human form of H5N1 comes out, contracting it is going to be the same now as it always has been. The virus is transported in the hosts blood and excretions, basically in nearly all liquid type material in the body. You can contract it without being in contact with any animal though, for example if i chicken excretes on a path, some one may clean it up but not wipe it enough to remove the H5N1 strain, you drop a lolly and pick it up straight away and wipe it off and put it right back in your mouth, you may of just contracted it. Or if you eat chicken, raw chicken e.g. chicken breast for dinner, it may have H5N1, you clean your cooking counters and that's it, then you prepare a salad and the virus is now on the salad, there are a unlimited ways to catch it. The most common of domesticated animals to get it is chickens, they have been domesticated for so long that H5N1 rips apart what tiny immune response they have to it, they don't stand a chance against it, the fatality rate is 90 - 100%. A way to prevent it would be to not handle any food that you think looks off. Don't drop anything and then keep on eating it, we've all done it when we were kids ! If you cook chicken Please do a massive clean up after wards, even if it means scrubbing one little area for 20 minutes, 99.999% of the time it will be completely harmless, not every chicken has it, but its just hygiene as well, chickens carry a lot of bad viruses not including H5N1; and as we have all been told 'Make sure to wash your hands'.

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Asia and DEFRA

Asia is the current 'hot spot', there handing of domestic animals is poor which is leading to is spreading there, ti is also the area where the most humans have died from contracting H5N1, one young girl from Asia got it from hugging and kissing chickens in her village; she later died. A big problem that has been taken into consideration is migration season of birds, this is a major threat this involves thousands if not tens of thousands of infected birds flying to uninfected areas where domestic animals are kept, animals who's immune system cannot deal with this deadly virus. DEFRA have announced that they are worried, they state

“Migratory populations include species in which the entire population or a significant proportion of the population cyclically and predictably crosses one or more national jurisdictional boundaries. Waterbirds use a wide variety of habitats during their annual cycle, from the artic tundra, forested wetlands of the temperate taiga, foreststeppe, steppe grasslands, deserts, inland and coastal wetlands, wet and dry agriculture croplands, rivers, floodplain wetlands, marshes, lakes, tanks, ponds, irrigation tanks, sewage and waste treatment farms”.

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Cure

People have been looking for a cure for a long time now, a cure was announced by the university of Pittsberg in 2006 which turned out to be incorrect. To date there is NO cure or medicine to feel better, at this point in time, if you get it...good luck, you'll need it. We are very close to developing a prevention drug though, in a thread on abovetopsecret.com it talks about how scientists manged to get a cell to resist H5N1 by isolating and repressing 3 genes, they believe that there are a total of 100 genes that are all necessary for H5N1 to infect the host. So as you can see we are getting closer to a cure every day, but we are not there yet. A very detailed any informative text about Avian Flu can be found Here.

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