Influenza A viruses spawn epidemics, global pandemics and sweeping outbreaks that kill millions of birds, yet only now have flu scientists obtained comprehensive, high-resolution structural data on a protein that is key to ...
Avian influenza viruses, or "bird flu," normally infects, well, birds. But when the virus does infect humans, it can cause more severe illness than other similar influenza viruses.
Jul 23, 2022
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Respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 (causing COVID-19) can often catalyze an overactive immune response that leads to a life-threatening cycle, known as a cytokine storm. Analyzing cytokine responses from patients infected ...
Mar 1, 2021
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A large international team of researchers has conducted a study that involved comparing the structure of the live poultry trade across Chinese provinces with genome sequencing of flu viruses from samples taken from birds ...
The ever-changing "head" of an influenza virus protein has an unexpected Achilles heel, report scientists funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health. ...
May 16, 2019
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Medical Research Council scientists have isolated therapeutic antibodies from healthy volunteers exposed to the Ebola vaccine but not Ebola virus itself, suggesting that protective therapies could be developed from people ...
Apr 3, 2019
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Vaccine researchers have developed a strategy aimed at generating broadly cross-reactive antibodies against the influenza virus: embrace the unfamiliar.
Aug 25, 2014
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A US-based Japanese scientist said Wednesday he has succeeded in engineering a version of the so-called swine flu virus that would be able to evade the human immune system.
Jul 2, 2014
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(Medical Xpress)—Since its first identification in Asia, highly pathogenic avian influenza – H5N1 – has caused significant alarm in the scientific community. While the virus' primary target is birds – tens of millions ...
Feb 7, 2014
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Live poultry markets can act as hotbeds for H5N1 bird flu, but simple measures such as disinfecting trucks, equipment and market space could help stop the virus from spreading, researchers said Monday.
May 6, 2013
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Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as "bird flu," A(H5N1) or simply H5N1, is a subtype of the Influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. A bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for "highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type A of subtype H5N1", is the causative agent of H5N1 flu, commonly known as "avian influenza" or "bird flu". It is enzootic in many bird populations, especially in Southeast Asia. One strain of HPAI A(H5N1) is spreading globally after first appearing in Asia. It is epizootic (an epidemic in nonhumans) and panzootic (affecting animals of many species, especially over a wide area), killing tens of millions of birds and spurring the culling of hundreds of millions of others to stem its spread. Most references to "bird flu" and H5N1 in the popular media refer to this strain.
According to the FAO Avian Influenza Disease Emergency Situation Update, H5N1 pathogenicity is continuing to gradually rise in endemic areas but the avian influenza disease situation in farmed birds is being held in check by vaccination. Eleven outbreaks of H5N1 were reported worldwide in June 2008 in five countries (China, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam) compared to 65 outbreaks in June 2006 and 55 in June 2007. The "global HPAI situation can be said to have improved markedly in the first half of 2008 [but] cases of HPAI are still underestimated and underreported in many countries because of limitations in country disease surveillance systems".
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