User talk:Artie1324

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Avian flu
Thanks for trying to help at Avian flu. Unfortunately what you wrote, while true, was an unbalanced account of mutation possibilities. a more balanced account can be found at Influenza pandemic which says:
 * "To have a flu pandemic several distinct phases must happen. H5N1's next phase is easy person to person transmission. After that occurs, it is theoretically possible to stop it before it becomes an epidemic, or if that opportunity is missed, to stop the epidemic before it becomes a pandemic. It is widely believed by the experts that it will not be possible to prevent any of these phases from occurring with H5N1, but if we are lucky enough to delay it for a few years, we might come up with a solution such as a flu vaccine."


 * "H5N1 is just one of the many subtypes of the species Influenza A virus. Any one of them can combine with each other or with different variant genotypes within its own subtype creating new varients, any one of which could become a pandemic strain. We know enough about the genetics to know what strains to fear most (example: only H5 and H7 subtypes are "highly pathogenic") and we know what genetic factors make a flu virus a human virus (i.e. easily passed human to human); so we know H5N1 is the biggest pandemic threat of all the strains in circulation and we know it is only a few antigenic shift mutations or antigenic drift mutations from being an avian flu virus to being a human flu virus. (How few, no one knows.) If it does this it may or may not still be in the H5N1 subtype. Both the drift and the shift can happen in any infected animal and then be passed to a human and spread like wildfire. Possible shift scenarios include the shift occurring in humans, pigs, or cats. To acquire the needed mutation through drift, it simply has to continue being an epidemic in birds long enough for the mutations to occur and then be passed to a human."

And H5N1 which says:
 * "Influenza viruses have a relatively high mutation rate that is characteristic of RNA viruses. The segmentation of the influenza genome facilitates genetic recombination by segment reassortment in hosts who are infected with two different influenza viruses at the same time.  H5N1 viruses can reassort genes with other strains that co-infect a host organism, such as a pig, bird, or human, and mutate into a form that can pass easily among humans. This is one of many possible paths to a pandemic."


 * "The ability of various influenza strains to show species-selectivity is largely due to variation in the hemagglutinin genes. Genetic mutations in the hemagglutinin gene that cause single amino acid substitutions can significantly alter the ability of viral hemagglutinin proteins to bind to receptors on the surface of host cells. Such mutations in avian H5N1 viruses can change virus strains from being inefficient at infecting human cells to being as efficient in causing human infections as more common human influenza virus types. This doesn't mean that one amino acid substitution can cause a pandemic, but it does mean that one amino acid substitution can cause an avian flu virus that is not pathogenic in humans to become pathogenic in humans."


 * "H3N2 ("swine flu") is endemic in pigs in China, and has been detected in pigs in Vietnam, increasing fears of the emergence of new variant strains. The dominant strain of annual flu virus in January 2006 was H3N2, which is now resistant to the standard antiviral drugs amantadine and rimantadine. The possibility of H5N1 and H3N2 exchanging genes through reassortment is a major concern. If a reassortment in H5N1 occurs, it might remain an H5N1 subtype, or it could shift subtypes, as H2N2 did when it evolved into the Hong Kong Flu strain of H3N2."


 * "Both the H2N2 and H3N2 pandemic strains contained avian flu virus RNA segments. "While the pandemic human influenza viruses of 1957 (H2N2) and 1968 (H3N2) clearly arose through reassortment between human and avian viruses, the influenza virus causing the 'Spanish flu' in 1918 appears to be entirely derived from an avian source""

The article Avian flu does need help with this paragraph:
 * "Avian flu viruses are noninfectious for most species. When they are infectious they are usually asymptomatic, so the carrier does not have any disease from it. Thus while infected with an avian flu virus, the animal doesn't have a "flu". Typically, when illness (called "flu") from an avian flu virus does occur, it is the result of an avian flu virus strain adapted to one species spreading to another species (usually from one bird species to another bird species). So far as we know the most common result of this is an illness so minor as to be not worth noticing (and thus little studied). But with the domestication of chickens and turkeys, we have created species subtypes (domesticated poultry) that can catch an avian flu virus adapted to waterfowl and have it rapidly mutate into a form that kills in days over 90% of an entire flock and spread to other flocks and kill 90% of them and can only be stopped by killing every domestic bird in the area. Until H5N1, this was basically the whole story of avian flu so far as anyone knew or cared (outside of the poultry industry). Now with H5N1, we have a whole new ballgame with H5N1 inventing new rules as it goes with behaviors never noticed before, and possibly never having occurred before. This is evolution right before our eyes. Even the Spanish flu virus did not behave like this. What is worth mentioning about illness from avian flu viruses is covered in H5N1 flu, Flu, and the subtype articles (H5N1, HxNy) linked below (and the references in those articles)."

which while true is poorly written (I wrote it). Maybe you could help improve that paragraph. It sure needs it. WAS 4.250 14:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)