Not testing for bird flu may give virus time to mutate
By Zeynep Tufekci / The New York Times
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported Thursday that another dairy farmworker has been infected with H5N1, an avian flu virus. Alarmingly, unlike earlier cases, he has respiratory symptoms. This means the virus is in his lungs, where it has a better chance to evolve into an airborne form that could easily infect others.
Viruses often hit a dead end when they cross from one species to another, getting stuck at their first victim. For example, H5N1 has been around since the 1990s, but most patients have had extensive, direct contact with sick poultry and almost never pass it on to other humans.
The pathogens that have the greatest potential to set off a pandemic often have a deadly combination of airborne transmission and frequent mild cases, allowing them to spread widely and stealthily. That’s a key reason there hasn’t yet been an Ebola pandemic. The disease causes severe illness and kills most victims, and it mainly spreads through close contact with infected bodily fluids. It has fewer chances to spread widely than another disease might.
The United States is certainly giving H5N1 many, many chances to adapt to spreading easily and quietly among humans.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/tufekci-not-testing-for-bird-flu-may-give-virus-time-to-mutate/
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