Single mutation in H5N1 bird flu virus may make it more infectious to humans, study finds [View all]

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Single mutation in H5N1 bird flu virus may make it more infectious to humans, study finds
Researchers at Scripps, reporting in Science, said their finding is ‘a clear concern’

By Helen Branswell Dec. 5, 2024
Senior Writer, Infectious Diseases

A study published Thursday contains a sobering piece of news about the H5N1 bird flu viruses circulating in cows in the United States: A single mutation in the hemagglutinin, the main protein on H5N1’s exterior, could turn a virus that is currently not well equipped to infect people into one that is much more capable of doing so.

Scientists from Scripps Research, in La Jolla, Calif., reported in the journal Science that one mutation in the hemagglutinin changed the type of cell receptors that the virus is best suited to attach to, switching its preference from those found in birds to those that abound in the human upper respiratory tract.
The authors termed their finding “a clear concern” — a view shared by other influenza scientists asked to review the paper by STAT. Debby van Riel, a virologist at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, suggested it could be that the version of the virus currently spreading in cows has a higher zoonotic potential — a greater capacity to jump species — than previous iterations of H5N1. But she and others, including the Scripps team themselves, cautioned that this one change on its own might not be enough to morph this virus into an efficient human pathogen.

While “the mutation to recognize human-type receptors is a crucial step, additional mutations are likely required for the virus to become fully transmissible between humans,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a flu virologist cross-appointed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Tokyo, told STAT in an email. “Unfortunately, we don’t yet know what these additional mutations might be, as this area of research has not been extensively studied.”
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https://www.statnews.com/2024/12/05/h5n1-bird-flu-study-journal-science-raises-alarm-potential-human-transmission/