A bird flu strain that claimed the life of a schoolgirl in Cambodia has evolved to better infect human cells. Scientists who made the discovery said the finding “needs to be treated with the utmost concern.”
There are some indications the virus had already gone through a human and picked up the new mutations before infecting the girl.
The 11-year-old girl, from Prey Veng province, last week became the first victim of H5N1 in 2023. Her father has also tested positive for the virus but has not developed symptoms.
Dr. Erik Karlsson, who led the team at the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia that decoded the genetic sequence of the girl’s virus, warns that it differed from that taken from birds.
“Any time these viruses get into a new host they’ll have certain changes that allow them to replicate a little bit better or potentially bind to the cells in our respiratory tract a little bit better.”
Genetic testing revealed that the girl had caught the 2.3.2.1c strain of H5N1, which is endemic to wild birds and poultry in Cambodia.
This differs from the 2.3.4.4b type that has spread rapidly around the world and infected many birds and mammals, but Dr. Karlsson says this was no reason to downplay the threat.
H5N1 has a human mortality rate of around 50%. There have only been around 870 cases among people. However, the 2.3.4.4b strain has already devastated the world’s bird population.
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