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Chinese scientists sound warning over new H10N8 bird flu
Chinese scientists sounded the alarm Wednesday after a new bird flu virus, H10N8, killed an elderly woman in December and infected another individual last month.
The fifth novel influenza strain to emerge in 17 years, the virus has a worrying genetic profile and should be closely monitored, they reported in The Lancet medical journal.
...
The genome of H10N8, it said, pointed to a mutation in its so-called PB2 protein that, previous research has found, suggests an ability to adapt to mammals.
The virus also has a mutation in its haemagglutinin protein — a spike on the virus surface that enables it to latch onto other cells — that suggests it can infect deep in the lung, like H5N1, rather than the upper respiratory tract, the trachea.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/04/chinese-scientists-sound-warning-over-new-h10n8-bird-flu/
The fifth novel influenza strain to emerge in 17 years, the virus has a worrying genetic profile and should be closely monitored, they reported in The Lancet medical journal.
...
The genome of H10N8, it said, pointed to a mutation in its so-called PB2 protein that, previous research has found, suggests an ability to adapt to mammals.
The virus also has a mutation in its haemagglutinin protein — a spike on the virus surface that enables it to latch onto other cells — that suggests it can infect deep in the lung, like H5N1, rather than the upper respiratory tract, the trachea.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/04/chinese-scientists-sound-warning-over-new-h10n8-bird-flu/