New discovery about the host that transmits H5N1 influenza virus to humans

Japanese researchers found that the H5N1 virus in cattle is more sticky than the virus originating from poultry, making this flu strain more contagious.

Japan's Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported that according to an analysis by a group of Japanese researchers, livestock infected with the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus can be transmitted to humans more easily than poultry hosts.

 
Virologist Kawaoka said there are suggestions that the nature of the virus may have changed. (Illustration photo. Source: iStock)

The research team, led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, director of the Tokyo Center for Advanced Research, Infection and Pandemic Prevention, published the findings in the online edition of the journal Nature this week.

The team used receptors in human respiratory cells to test the response to the H5N1 virus from two hosts of this pathogen, cows and poultry. Through that, they found that the virus in cows adhered more strongly than the virus originating from poultry , making this flu strain more contagious.

The researchers also confirmed that the bovine virus was highly pathogenic to mice and ferrets. When ferrets and mice were infected with the bovine H5N1 virus, the virus replicated throughout the body, including the brain and muscles, and was highly virulent.

Virologist Kawaoka added that there is an opinion that the nature of the virus may have changed. It is not excluded that the virus can be transmitted from person to person in the future.

H5N1 is a type of influenza A virus that can cause serious infectious diseases in poultry. The disease broke out globally in the 2000s, causing mass deaths of chickens in many areas.

According to the Mainichi Shimbun daily, a series of cases of the disease in many mammals have been detected since 2020. Notably, the World Health Organization (WHO) has received reports of 28 cases of A/H5N1 influenza infection in humans, but no cases of human-to-human transmission have been recorded.

When infected with A/H5N1 flu, the most common symptoms include high fever over 38 degrees, cough, sore throat, muscle pain, chest pain.

If not treated promptly, the disease can progress rapidly, causing dangerous respiratory complications (such as Acute Respiratory Syndrome - difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, pneumonia) or causing neurological effects such as convulsions, abnormal mental states.