Combined infection with bird flu and human flu could lead to mutations of new viruses that could have dangerous public health consequences, agencies have warned.
This is following the news that mutations of bird flu have occurred within a Louisiana patient and a teenager from Canada who both suffered with severe symptoms, potentially raising the risk of serious human infection among others.
Almost five years after Covid blew into our lives, the main thing standing between us and the next global pandemic is luck. And with the advent of flu season, that luck may well be running out.
California's health department confirmed the case through lab testing. The patient contracted it after traveling from East Africa, where there has been an outbreak of the clade I strain. The person was treated in San Mateo County and then released. The person is at home recovering, the CDC said Saturday.
Pigs are the ideal genetic mixing vessel to generate a human pandemic influenza strain, because they have receptors in their respiratory tracts which both avian and human flu viruses can bind to.
