H5N1 strain of bird flu found in milk: WHO
The H5N1 bird flu virus strain has been detected in very high concentrations in raw milk from infected animals, the WHO said Friday, though how long the virus can survive in milk is unknown.
The H5N1 bird flu virus strain has been detected in very high concentrations in raw milk from infected animals, the WHO said Friday, though how long the virus can survive in milk is unknown.
Veterinary medicine
Apr 19, 2024
2
95
Health officials around the globe, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, are monitoring the ongoing avian influenza outbreak. Also known as bird ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 16, 2024
0
3
By harnessing the power of composite polymer particles adorned with gold nanoparticles, a group of researchers have delivered a more accurate means of testing for infectious diseases. Details of their research are published ...
Bio & Medicine
Apr 4, 2024
0
3
There has been an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital. The viral disease, also called avian influenza, killed 441 chickens out of a flock of 641 on a farm.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 25, 2024
0
6
Minnesota has reported the U.S.'s first ruminant—a group of animals including cattle, sheep, and goats—to test positive for avian influenza.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 22, 2024
0
9
The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 has adapted to spread between birds and marine mammals, posing an immediate threat to wildlife conservation, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, ...
Evolution
Feb 28, 2024
0
121
Climate change is a threat to polar bear's survival. Now they have a new deadly challenge facing them: bird flu. It was recently confirmed that a polar bear from northern Alaska has died from the disease.
Plants & Animals
Jan 16, 2024
0
21
Some bacterial membrane transporters work almost like freight elevators to transport substances through the cell membrane into the interior of the cell. The transporter itself spans the bacterial membrane. Like a forklift, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 8, 2024
0
1
Research shows that three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases are passed from animals to humans; an illness of this type is known as zoonosis (plural: zoonoses). Farm animals, especially pigs and poultry, pose a high ...
Influenza and other viruses pack their genetic material into a protein shell, which must be disassembled for the viruses to efficiently replicate. But how viruses "uncoat" their genes remains largely unknown. Now, Friedrich ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 3, 2024
0
3
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses), that affects birds and mammals. The name influenza comes from the Italian influenza, meaning "influence" (Latin: influentia). The most common symptoms of the disease are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort. Fever and coughs are the most frequent symptoms. In more serious cases, influenza causes pneumonia, which can be fatal, particularly for the young and the elderly. Although it is often confused with other influenza-like illnesses, especially the common cold, influenza is a much more severe disease than the common cold and is caused by a different type of virus. Influenza may produce nausea and vomiting, particularly in children, but these symptoms are more common in the unrelated gastroenteritis, which is sometimes called "stomach flu" or "24-hour flu".
Typically, influenza is transmitted through the air by coughs or sneezes, creating aerosols containing the virus. Influenza can also be transmitted by bird droppings, saliva, nasal secretions, feces and blood. Infection can also occur through contact with these body fluids or through contact with contaminated surfaces. Airborne aerosols have been thought to cause most infections, although which means of transmission is most important is not absolutely clear. Influenza viruses can be inactivated by sunlight, disinfectants and detergents. As the virus can be inactivated by soap, frequent hand washing reduces the risk of infection.
Influenza spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands annually — millions in pandemic years. Three influenza pandemics occurred in the 20th century and killed tens of millions of people, with each of these pandemics being caused by the appearance of a new strain of the virus in humans. Often, these new strains appear when an existing flu virus spreads to humans from other animal species, or when an existing human strain picks up new genes from a virus that usually infects birds or pigs. An avian strain named H5N1 raised the concern of a new influenza pandemic, after it emerged in Asia in the 1990s, but it has not evolved to a form that spreads easily between people. In April 2009 a novel flu strain evolved that combined genes from human, pig, and bird flu, initially dubbed "swine flu", emerged in Mexico, the United States, and several other nations. WHO officially declared the outbreak to be a "pandemic" on June 11, 2009.
Vaccinations against influenza are usually given to people in developed countries and to farmed poultry. The most common human vaccine is the trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV) that contains purified and inactivated material from three viral strains. Typically, this vaccine includes material from two influenza A virus subtypes and one influenza B virus strain. The TIV carries no risk of transmitting the disease, and it has very low reactivity. A vaccine formulated for one year may be ineffective in the following year, since the influenza virus evolves rapidly, and new strains quickly replace the older ones. Antiviral drugs can be used to treat influenza, with neuraminidase inhibitors being particularly effective.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA