[Mother Abigail]

Condition of Two Children Infected with Bird Flu in Turkey Deteriorates

The condition of the two children, hospitalised in the Turkish town of Van with symptoms of bird flu has deteriorated, AFP reported, citing sources from the hospital.

12-year-old Fatma Ozkan is in critical condition and is on assisted breathing, the Chief doctor of the hospital Hussein Avni Sahin said. He added that the two children were in contact with infected domestic birds and were moved to hospital too late, six days after initial symptoms appeared.

[Mother Abigail]

Bird flu mutation sparks concern Genetic tweak makes virus favour human nose and throat.

Researchers have sequenced the bird flu viruses that killed two people in Turkey in early January, and say that one of them contains a worrying mutation.

This genetic tweak can make the H5N1 virus more adapted to humans than to birds, and more adapted to the nose and throat than to the lungs. This latter effect could help to increase the chances of bird flu being transmitted between people, researchers say.

Nose and throat

The mutation also has a secondary effect, which may be more worrying.

There are two subtypes of receptors in the human respiratory tract: alpha 2.3, which occurs mainly in the lower respiratory tract; and alpha 2.6, which occurs mainly in the nose and throat. Human flu viruses typically show a preference for the 2.6 receptors, whereas H5N1 strains typically prefer 2.3.

This is good news for those worried about bird flu, since human-to-human transmission is thought to be more likely via droplets coughed from the nose and throat than from infections lower down. But the mutation found in the Turkey viruses is also known to be able to increase the affinity for H5N1 to the 2.6 receptors, points out Sylvie van der Werf, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of Respiratory Viruses at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France.

Van der Werf adds that this affinity will, however, be affected by other genetic changes in the virus, which at present are an unknown factor.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1558395/posts

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Crosslinked to: Strange New Disease Outbreaks-- Click the picture:

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