In: Biology
Compared virus sequences with human and avian. they are over 95%similiar.
Based on your results (which of course are limited—it would be necessary to do many more comparisons in reality), do you think there is evidence that human adaptation is occurring in H5N1 viruses that might merit concern about human-to-human transmission in the near future?
This strain of Influenza viruses causes the severe disease in comparison to other strains. This virus generally infects the birds and in case of human it is found rear. This virus needs to for form sialic acid receptor which is found in lungs of humans. Virus needs to reach down at lungs through upper respiratory system which block the entry of virus in lungs. It is assumption that if mutation will occur in HA part of virus then mutant strain of this virus will be able to infect upper respiratory tract which will be very dangerous. Secondly the human to human transmission will be very easy for this virus.
This mutation can be assumed from a communication article which was published in 25 August 2004 having title “The genome sequence analysis of H5N1 avian influenza A virus isolated from the outbreak among poultry populations in Thailand”. They had demonstrated that there is no such big change HA gene of influenza virus in last 10 years. But deletion in neuraminidase gene was observed.
Engineering of H5N1 virus and analysis over animal model will not able to provide validated and sufficient results to conclude these assumption. Adaptation of for this virus can be helpful to study the human to human transmission because it will not cause severe impact.