Gene Swap Helps Bird Flu Spread Between Mammals

摘要

A simple gene swap can make the dangerous bird flu strain H5N1 transmissible between mammals, finds a paper published by Science this week. H5N1 can infect humans in contact with infected birds, but does not spread efficiently between people. A team led by Chen Hualan at the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in China wanted to know if that might change if H5N1 picks up genes from H1N1, a human flu strain, when the two infect the same host.