2023-10-19 12:15:19
The epicenter of avian flu has moved from Asia to several areas of Europe and Africa, two continents where variants, in some cases quite virulent, have emerged between 2020 and 2022, according to a study published this week Nature.
The research, in which centers from China, Egypt, France, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States have participated, has also confirmed that wild birds have played a fundamental role in the spread of the avian flu virus (H5) beyond from Asia.
The new, highly virulent H5N1 viruses evolved during the global expansion of the initial virus by combining with other low-pathogenic strains from wild and poultry birds.
The avian virus was identified in China in 1996began to spread in wild birds beyond this country in 2014 and since 2021 highly pathogenic strains of it (H5N1) have been observed, although their origin was still unclear.
Now, scientists have seen how these new virus H5N1 of high virulence evolved during the global expansion of the initial virus by its combination with other strains of low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) from wild and poultry birds.
To reach this conclusion, they have analyzed the origins and changing trends of highly pathogenic avian H5 outbreaks using epidemiological data, collected by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health between 2005 and 2022, together with the analysis of more than 10,000 genomes Complete viral.
Analysis of the virus genome
After analyzing the genome, they have seen that the first major outbreaks originated in China in 2016/17, while two new H5 viruses identified between 2020 and 2022 emerged from African and European bird populations, which would indicate a significant shift in the epicenter of the disease. bird flu out of Asia and into these continents.
Two new H5 viruses identified between 2020 and 2022 emerged from African and European bird populations,
The increasing persistence of these viruses in wild birds would have facilitated their geographical spread and expanded its range of infection of avian species, including domestic ones.
Control measures are urgent
“These findings urge the development of systematic control measures for domestic and wild birds to limit viral spread and control the prevalence of highly pathogenic avian influenza in global bird populations, as well as continue investigating viral evolution to mitigate and react to new strains,” the authors indicate.
Collaterally, these control and monitoring measures would stop the transmission of the virus to mammals, including humans, and would prevent what part of the scientific community considers could be potentially become a next pandemic.
Reference:
R. Xie, V. Dhanasekaran et al. “The episodic resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 virus”. Nature(October, 2023)
Rights: Creative Commons.
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