A Bird Flu Pandemic Is Just Three Mutations Away

Late last year studies into mutated avian flu, H5N1, were deemed too risky to be published. Now, one has made its way into a journal—and it warns that a bird flu pandemic is just three mutations away.

The study describes how a team of scientists, from Cambridge, Rotterdam and the NIH, managed to create H5N1 virus strains that could become capable of airborne transmission between mammals. Their experiments, which we've explained in some detail before, show some worrying results:


But with the publishing of the paper in Science comes some extra information. The researchers explain that there are strains of H5N1 already in existence that are just three mutations away from taking a form which would render them passable form one human to another.

Obviously, that could be more or less scary depending on how easy it is for those three mutations to occur. Warning: it's towards the scarier end of spectrum. Prof Derek Smith, one of the Cambridge researchers, explains to the Telegraph:


One. Freaking. Person. Fortunately, the paper goes on to point out that, when they engineered such viruses, the results weren't deadly to ferrets when caught via inhalation. That suggests the same should be the case for humans and, in turn, that eases some initial concerns which feared that HN51 could be made into a bioweapon by terrorists. Which is, at least, some small crumb of comfort. [Science, Telegraph]

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