Avian flu woes continues !
And something about vaccines...
This thread is a continuation/update on the thread below, which is an 18+ months effort to keep tracking down this evolving (literally) matter.
A nice Twitter follower sent me this.
Wild fox in Minnesota tests positive for highly contagious avian influenza
This is the first confirmed case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in a wild mammal in the state, the Department of Natural Resources said.
Last week, two red fox kits in Ontario, Canada tested positive for HPAI. Those positive results marked the first reported cases of the current outbreak of the contagious sickness in a wild mammal in North America.
This year's HPAI strain is more aggressive, according to the DNR, and has caused more deaths amongst domestic poultry and wild birds than the previous strain in 2015.
DNR confirms avian flu in wild foxes
MADISON, Wis. (WBAY) - The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says three red foxes tested positive for the avian flu. It’s the first time the avian flu was found in a wild mammal in Wisconsin.
The DNR says three fox kits from three different counties were tested after showing advanced neurological symptoms.
A DNR wildlife veterinarian says the kits were most likely infected after eating infected wild birds.
Dr. Lindsey Long said there’s no evidence foxes are a significant source for transmitting the H5N1 virus, and there are no cases of H5N1 in domestic dogs or cats. However, the DNR advises people should avoid approaching any wild animal that appears sick or injured or is behaving abnormally.
Neurological symptoms of infection include unbalanced posture, pacing or walking in circles, or head or body tremors. These can be caused by a number of conditions, including disease, parasites, or environmental contaminants.
Wild birds, particularly waterfowl and shorebirds, are still the most likely animals to be infected by the avian flu. The H5N1 strain is considered highly pathogenic because of how deadly it is to domestic poultry.
Baby fox dies after testing positive for bird flu in Minnesota
The young fox was found in Anoka County and died, as did two red fox kits in Ontario, Canada who tested positive for the avian flu last week.
It is a concerning development, the fact that the number of mammals being infected by the current avian flu strain (not my dreaded H10N3) is increasing, so I decided to look into it further.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus in Wild Red Foxes, the Netherlands, 2021
The authors of the paper did a great job of pinning down the exact cause, as the area has other wild endemic diseases.
Subsequently, we tested brain samples for avian influenza virus by using a PCR detecting the influenza A virus matrix gene, followed by the subtype-specific H5-PCR on the hemagglutinin gene, as described previously (2). The samples from both cubs tested positive (Table), and we subtyped the virus as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) influenza virus A subtype H5N1. We isolated the HPAI H5N1 virus from the brain of cub 1 by inoculation of the samples into 10-day-old embryonated special pathogen–free chicken eggs.
So what is the point of sharing these? The long-term trend of specific strains of avian flu adapting to mammals. It would be a disaster if it achieved human-to-human transmission at an efficient rate, but it would also be a disaster if this started wiping out wild mammals, and shifted whole ecological systems.
I don’t think this should alarm you, merely to be aware and prepared, the linked piece above has a lot of what you can do about it. It is just a trend to keep an eye on, something I am deeply interested in, and something I think people should be aware of.
Of course, this wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t do something like this…
Homologous recombination evidence in human and swine influenza A viruses
Abstract
Dynamic gene mutation and the reassortment of genes have been considered as the key factors responsible for influenza A virus virulence and host tropism change. This study reports several significant evidence demonstrating that homologous recombination also takes place between influenza A viruses in human and swine lineages. Moreover, in a mosaic descended from swine H1N1 subtype and human H2N2, we found that its minor putative parent might be a derivative from the human cold-adapted vaccine lineage, which suggests that live vaccine is capable of playing a role in genetic change of influenza A virus via recombination with circulating viruses. These results would be important for knowing the molecular mechanism of mammal influenza A virus heredity and evolution.
A key molecular basis that drives the virulence change of a virus is amino acid mutation. Dynamic gene mutant has been shown to play an important role in the virulence change of AIV (Hatta et al., 2001, Hulse-Post et al., 2007), but homologous recombination also plays an important role in the evolution of some RNA viruses (Kirkegaard and Baltimore, 1986, Lai, 1992, Nagy and Simon, 1997). Virulent variants of some other viruses have been generated by homologous recombination (Anderson et al., 2000, Kew et al., 2002, Pita et al., 2001, Worobey et al., 1999). For influenza A virus, there has been ample evidence that influenza viruses undergo various forms of non-homologous recombination. For example, a recombination can occur between HA and nucleoprotein gene (Orlich et al., 1994). Similarly, increased viral pathogenicity after insertion of a 28S ribosomal RNA sequence into the haemagglutinin gene of an influenza virus was also found (Khatchikian et al., 1989). However, the occurrence of homologous recombination within segments is far from proven (Nelson and Holmes, 2007).
In order to clarify whether homologous recombination drives the evolution of human influenza A, we analyzed the H1N1 subtype of about 3800 genes and found several significant evidences of recombination between swine H1N1 and human H2N2 subtypes in PA, between swine lineage strains in PB2, and between human lineage strains in HA and NP. Particularly, in a mosaic PA of swine H1N1, one putative parent seems to be derived from a cold-adapted avirulent vaccine lineage of human H2N2. These data show that the intragenic recombination can indeed play a role in driving the evolution of influenza A virus. In addition, the avirulent vaccine could shape the evolution of the virus via homologous recombination with circulating influenza A virus.
This is weird, and maybe not related to the bird flu but it's been bothering me. One of my dogs suddenly came down with a neurological issue, when she tried to walk it looked like she was drunk and she would flop over. When she tried to stand her legs splayed out like Bambi on the ice in the Disney cartoon. It got to the point that I had to make a sling to take her outside to make. The vet said it was neurological and that she wasn't in pain. We tried meds but they didn't help. Eventually I had to have her put to sleep.
Within the last 2 weeks one of my brother's dogs has the same condition. He's gone to numerous vets. He's been told it's neurological. Our dogs have never been in contact with each other and it has only happened to each of us in one of our 2 dogs. We live on Long Island, so there are waterfowl, though I haven't seen any in my yard they do fly over my property. I can't speak for my brother's yard, he's more inland than I am.
I just found it very odd that the both of us have had this issue with one of our dogs within 3 months of each other. Hmm.
This feels like a set up for the next round of mandatory mRNA vaccinations and lock downs. It is pretty straightforward to avoid avian flu when restricted to birds. But show spread and pathological effects in cats and dogs, and a whole new fear wave will be possible...conveniently coinciding with the mid-terms. Locked down, can't vote, must rely on mail-in ballots, democrats maintain control.