As the number of human bird flu cases continues to rise and more dairy farms across the country report outbreaks, scientists are increasingly concerned that the H5N1 virus will mutate to better infect people. That is, of course, what viruses do all the time, a prime example being the uncountable number of mutations undergone by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. With H5N1, it wouldn't take much genetic shifts to become a more severe illness, according to a study published in Science yesterday.
In the lab, the authors of the study found that a single mutation in the primary protein, hemagglutinin (which is what the H in H5N1 stands for) could give it the ability to cling onto receptors found in the human respiratory tract, potentially increasing the severity of disease or transmissibility. A previous switch in receptor binding preferences was critical for influenza pandemics in 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009.
