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Apr
27
H5N1, H7 influenza viruses
Filed Under Bird Flu
So the United Kingdom wakes up to another bird flu story - this time a commercial flock of 35,000 chickens is found to be infected with an H7 variant of avian influenza.
Suddenly these “H” and “N” letters take on a significance that very few of us realised six months ago. Even with my scientific background, I had no idea about all these different variants of the influenza virus, yet these small differences in the surface properties of the virus make huge differences to its lethality and species specificity.
This is an excellent article about the various forms of influenza viruses, but in essence, an influenza virus binds to a specific cell with its “H” surface proteins and then blows a hole in that cell with its “N” proteins.
Like a lock and key, the configuration of a virus’s H proteins (H5, H7 etc) determine which cells can bind the virus. This is why the H7 avian flu virus found in the UK bears no threat to humans - that virus cannot lock onto our cells - its H7 “key” doesn’t fit our cell “locks”.
A few months ago, the discovery of a variant of avian flu in a poultry farm would have gone almost unnoticed, however today it is different.
We want to know about it, yet we are relieved by those H’s and N’s. In this case they signify a virus that is bad news for chickens, but not bad news for humans.
