Influenza is a new strain of bird flu and it spreads wildly among people: The case of the girl’s H5N1 sample
The scientist who led the effort to sequence the viral samples from the girl says that the strain of H5N1 she had was different from the one causing the mass deaths around the world. The girl may have gotten the most recent case of the widely circulating virus which has been reported in a number of people since 2020.
The new variant puts bird flu in “uncharted territory”, says Wendy Puryear, a virologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Without careful precautions the disease might eventually spread among people.
Schaffner says that the measures taken to prevent the new strain from spreading beyond the farm seem to have been successful.
The researchers found that in most years, influenza, especially the H5N1 variant, was reported at the highest frequency of any infectious disease — 776 outbreaks have been documented since 1996.
China reported the most outbreaks — 262 in total, of which 218 were of influenza — followed by Saudi Arabia, which documented MERS 179 times, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which reported 105 Ebola outbreaks (See ‘Disease outbreaks’). There were few reports about countries in Eastern Europe.
2.3.4.4b: A new viral clade and its impact on poultry farmers and poultry farmers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
The database will allow researchers to look at the factors that determine how much money is spent to suppress a specific outbreak, or how external circumstances such as conflicts or weather events affect them, says Katz. However, the study notes that DON reports do not mention all known outbreaks in every region.
The WHO could improve the DON reports by increasing transparency, creating more specific criteria for an outbreak, and adding more information about contextual variables such as climate hazards or animal populations.
Poultry farmers could also raise a wider variety of bird breeds in order to stop the virus, says Nichola Hill, an ecologist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. In Asia, where farmers have a long history of navigating outbreaks of bird flu, some have switched to breeds that are less susceptible to the virus.
Carol Cardona is a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, and she tells us that it may be difficult to maintain an acceptable level of security given the current workforce and building styles. “The reason I say it can work is that companies that had [highly pathogenic avian flu] in 2015 had fewer cases in 2022. They learned some things, but many of them kept it out completely.
The girl may have had the strain which is causing problems around the world and causing major problems in Europe, North America and South America. 2.3.4.4b is a new viral clade and we do not know much about it.
The sample was first tested at the National Institute of Public Health in Phnom Penh, and then transferred to us. We received the sample at about 5 p.m. on 22 February, and it was sequenced within 24 hours. This really exemplifies the way that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased our capacity to sequence and share data very quickly.
The viral load in the sample was high enough that we could amplify the whole influenza genome in one go. If the viral load had been low, which is often the case, we would have had to wait about three days to grow it in cells or eggs to get enough virus to sequence. The focus has been to get the virus into the public domain quickly.
Researchers have been monitoring 2.3.2.1c for quite some time, and have information on it to make reasonable judgments about its transmissibility and pathogenicity. We have to treat it very seriously whenever a zoonotic spillover occurs.
A Viruses are promiscuous and will quickly adapt to a new host. We have seen it with the virus that causes COVID-19. A spillover indicates that a new host could allow the virus to adapt. That is concerning because that adaptation could result in a virus that could potentially transmit between people. Getting ahead of that, and blocking any potential for transmission, as well as understanding what the virus does in its new host, is critically important and can inform the outbreak response.
We are attempting to sequence samples from the father, but he seems to have had a lower viral load, which makes it a little bit harder to rapidly get a sequence. We will try some more targeted approaches, as well as isolating the virus. In most cases, there isn’t enough load to get more than a partial sequence.
An International Facility to Isolate and Grow STDs in the Cambodian Pandemic: Six Ways to Write Better e-mails, the Future of Self-Driving Ships, and the Case of a
The amount of poultry farming in Cambodia increased during the Pandemic. Tour guides, for example, couldn’t work, so they had to find other ways to make ends meet. All over the world, people are still struggling, which has resulted in changes in agricultural practices that can increase spillover risk. People who are less well-fed and are overweight can be more susceptible to being bitten by an STD.
We can develop tools for better understanding the case and the virus in the region by isolating and growing this virus in our biosafety-level 3 facility. We could collect blood samples from other people living in the same area as the girl’s father to create tests for the presence of antibodies that indicate past infections. The isolates will also be essential for laboratories around the world to study the virus’s transmissibility and pathogenicity, including in animal models, such as ferrets.
Six ways to write better e-mails, the future of self-driving cargo ships, and a child who died of avian influenza this month had a different variant from that causing mass deaths in birds globally.
Namibia’s lions are back to prowling the country’s beaches, nearly four decades after they disappeared from these areas. After their population was nearly wiped out, the lions of Namibia stopped hunting on the beaches. Even as their numbers recovered, scientists thought the knowledge of how to hunt seals and flamingos had been lost. The revival of hunting along a 40-hectare stretch of beach was stimulated by a drought that wiped out zebras and other desert prey. To keep both people and the animals safe, a virtual fence now sends out alerts every time lions approach the area.
How to Write a GREAT E-mail a Day: How to Make an Autonomous Seafarer More Self-Driving Ship
The Wall Street Journal reported that a document from the DoE said the COVID-19 vaccine likely came about from a laboratory leak. The DoE reportedly said that its assessment is of ‘low confidence’, which indicates, among other things, that the analysis is based on scant or questionable information. Some scientists, as well as the World Health Organization, say that the ‘lab leak’ hypothesis is still on the table. “There simply is no hard evidence either way,” says science and security researcher Filippa Lentzos. Some say it is wrong to say the issue is undecided because of multiple evidence and studies that support the emergence of the swine flu from animals associated with the live animal trade.
Pilot projects are already showing the potential of self-driving ships as big as those that carry most global trade. Making large vessels more autonomous should improve safety, increase efficiency and — along with cleaner fuels and engines — reduce environmental impacts. Seafarers in short supply, could also be reduced in risk. Seven researchers highlight the practical, legal and economic implications that have to be resolved to harness the benefits of such vessels.
I only send one great email a day, but most people don’t. Laboratory manager-turned graduate student Benjamin Tsang offers lessons he has learnt for writing e-mails that make your principal investigator (PI) sit up and take notice. Keep messages concise, include actionable words and clear deadlines, and say when you’ll be back in touch, he suggests. And take advantage of features offered by some systems, such as a ten-second delay after pressing the send button that lets you act on sender’s remorse.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00607-y
Vaccination for the aviavian viral infection, which has already been identified in the United Arab Emirates, as a leader in space exploration
The Islamic Golden Age gave rise to discoveries in space that have made the Arab region a hub of space exploration. The history of Baghdad, which was the House of Wisdom, takes us to today’s efforts by the United Arab Emirates to become a leader in space exploration.
Scientists are in the early stages of developing vaccines that might solve this problem. The University of Wisconsin–Madison is developing a vaccine that only uses a small portion of the virus’s DNA. Birds that have been vaccinations and also those that are sick could be compared by the tests.
That knowledge could help farmers target measures to protect poultry, such as cleaning up grain that could attract wild birds and washing boots before entering farms. It is extremely hard to do that in a year. Shorter time frames are more feasible.
Hill believes that humanity can keep the virus in check. “The question is control at this point, and preventing a human pandemic,” she says. I think both of those are doable.