United States: A patient was hospitalized in Missouri earlier this year due to the bird flu had the H5N1 strain of the virus – the US CDC reported on Friday.
The viral sequence was deposited to GISAID, an open-source database and repository of genetic sequences from viruses. It revealed that the virus is nearly related to the strain that has affected dairy cattle in 14 states this year.
More about the news
While the patient tested positive for the virus in Missouri in the last week of the month, they did not have close interaction with wild birds, poultry, or cattle or claim to have drunk raw dairy products.
It is yet unknown how the person contracted the virus. There are thirteen other human infections that have been reported in the US this year, all of which are from people who interacted with infected animals.
The role of this infection, though, still remains ambiguous. Of course, the professionals say that it is quite worrisome that the person got infected and that there was no interaction with infected animals, which seems odd and deviates from the usual pattern, CNN Health reported.
All the other human infections of H5N1 reported this year have been mild and what infectious disease experts call dead-end infections: None of the people have been known to pass the infection to anyone else.
There is nevertheless good news; the follow-up of the contact of the person’s contact did not identify any positive case, and therefore, it was not a virus with any new abilities.
What more are the experts stating?
It appears that such assertion is in tandem with the genetic map of the virus. The researchers stated that there was nothing that suggested that it was going to be more transmissible or cause worse disease, as quoted by the CDC.
However, there were changes that may be of clinical importance to the development of candidate vaccine viruses, which are flu viruses developed by the CDC and that manufacturers can use in case of an outbreak of a disease.
According to Dr. Nirav Shah, the principal deputy director of the CDC, the patient infected with the virus had chest pain, diarrhea, and nausea, accompanied by bodily weakness. Therefore, CNN Health reported that he was referred to the hospital under such conditions.
Further, Shah stated, “No, we’re not describing it as incidental. That was a question that was on our minds. But no, it was not incidental there.”