#3 – Avian Influenza: From Wild Birds to Humans

00:00:06: I also wanted to say that the situation is very different from what we had with COVID-IX.

00:00:12: When Covid-IX started, We didn't have any vaccines or antiviral medications and we did not know much about the virus that caused covid-IX.

00:00:22: so it was a pretty bad situation.

00:00:24: With age five and one The situation could be really bad too.

00:00:27: if the virus causes a pandemic It's likely many people will die but we would better prepared.

00:01:02: Hello and welcome to this episode of Virological.

00:01:06: This was recorded on February, twenty-second of twenty-twenty six in New York And today we're going to talk about avian influenza or bird flu.

00:01:17: So there are many types of avian influence and I'll get into it a little bit.

00:01:21: However if people hear about avien influenza in the media It's mostly about age five and one or sometimes H-seven viruses and as I mentioned, i'm going to explain in a little bit more detail what makes these viruses special.

00:01:40: But let's start with some basics about influenza viruses and influenza A viruses specifically.

00:01:47: Influenza A viruses include seasonal influenza swine flu bird flu and influenza viruses that infect many different animal species.

00:01:58: Actually influenza A viruses can even infect alligators, people have tried that and they actually do get infected.

00:02:06: Influenza A viruses are automixer viruses related to influenza B viruses, influenza C viruses.

00:02:13: in the influenza D viruses Influenza B viruses only infect humans, influenza C viruses also circulate in humans and other animals.

00:02:22: And influenza D viruses are typically found in cows and sheep for example.

00:02:29: All of these viruses have a minus sense single stranded RNA genome.

00:02:34: that basically just means the RNA is in an entire sense direction.

00:02:38: so the virus needs to turn it into positive sense direction before a protein can be translated from the genome.

00:02:47: And, The special part here is that this... It's a segmented genome.

00:02:52: Influenza A and B viruses have eight genomic segments.

00:02:56: Influenza C and D viruses has seven genomics segments.

00:03:00: You can imagine there are little bit like chromosomes that humans or other animals have.

00:03:06: this allows these viruses to actually exchange these genomic segments.

00:03:11: if two different viruses infect the same animal and the same cell.

00:03:15: This typically can happen between influenza A viruses or between influenza B viruses, influenza A and B for example don't mix so it needs to be within influenza A or within influenza B virus but they can do that... ...and then just exchange these Genomic Segments which lead to new viruses basically that have different combinations of these genomic segments.

00:03:40: We call this mechanism re-assortment and the viruses, they come out of it re-sortened viruses And these new viruses can have new traits.

00:03:49: They can be more dangerous than their parents.

00:03:53: That is one of issues we have with influenza viruses In terms of structure.

00:04:03: In terms of structure, we have these genomic segments on the inside of the virion.

00:04:08: They're covered by a nucleoprotein that protects their RNA and there's also an polymerase complex associated with the genomic segment.

00:04:18: And then we have matrix protein which stabilizes the virions from the insides and is attached to the lipid envelope.

00:04:27: in this lipid envelopes you get two spike proteins The hemagglutinin and the neuraminidase.

00:04:33: And we'll get to those two in a second.

00:04:36: In terms of size, the particles are eighty-two hundred twenty nanometers in diameter.

00:04:42: They're kind of round but more pliomorphic.

00:04:46: Some are egg shaped some really round some elongated.

00:04:50: Usually when you have lab strains of influenza they were around.

00:04:55: But patient isolates of influenza viruses can be pretty elongated really filamentous and they look more like Ebola viruses.

00:05:05: So we have these two spike proteins, right?

00:05:07: The first one is the hemagglutinin or in short HA.

00:05:11: this protein is important because it binds to our cells.

00:05:15: that actually binds to sugar structures on the surface of ourselves.

00:05:18: so they allow the virus to attach to our cell's And specifically they bind to Cialic acids on sugar structure.

00:05:27: So the first function of the hemagglutinin is binding and then once the virus is bound to the cell surface, The cell takes it up engulfs into an endosome.

00:05:39: And Then a second Function of AJ comes or hemaglutinine come in to play and that's fusion.

00:05:45: so the Hemagglutenin is basically little machine That can fuse viral membrane with the endosomal membrane then allows the viral genome that sits inside of the virus to move into the cell and start the replication cycle, and start infection.

00:06:05: So two important functions... The second spike protein, the neuraminidase is actually an enzyme And it keeps these sugar residues, these cialic acids from the cell surface.

00:06:19: That allows newly formed viruses to get released in cells to other cells, so both of these proteins are very important for the virus.

00:06:28: And actually influenza viruses are named and typed after two different spike proteins.

00:06:37: So when you think about seasonal influenza we have H-one N-one and H-three N-two strains.

00:06:44: H one N-One is basically named after type I hemagglutinin and type I neuraminidase, so N-I.

00:06:54: H-III and II is called the H-II because it has a type III hemagglutinin in the type II neuraminidae, So H- III and II.

00:07:03: for each VN-I It would be a type V hemaglutinin and that type I neurominidase.

00:07:10: And typically we have nineteen HA subtypes that exist In animal reservoirs and twelve neuraminide subtype.

00:07:20: Seventeen of these A.J.

00:07:22: subtypes circulate in birds and nine N.A.s uptypes circulating bird, so birds are really the main reservoir for influenza A viruses.

00:07:32: Yeah, influenza A virus is that circulating birds are generally called avian influenza or bird flu – that's where their name comes from!

00:07:41: Most of this viruses are pretty harmless to birds.

00:07:46: they often cause in birds asymptomatic infections, sometimes infections with mild symptoms.

00:07:53: They can grow on the respiratory tract like seasonal influenza in humans but very often do also growing the gastrointestinal tract and in birds so basically means the virus just replicates into gut And that also explains some of the bird to bird spread.

00:08:11: you can imagine if a duck is infected with influenza virus swimming around in the water and filter feeding into the water.

00:08:18: And then it poops, the water gets contaminated... The next duck that kind of feeds through to do this water takes up the virus and get infected again.

00:08:29: It's pretty disgusting but thats how the virus can spread in wild waterfall.

00:08:36: But there are also strains of avian influenza that can cause severe disease and very rapid death in birds, H-seven subtype viruses.

00:08:53: And today I'm going to talk about age five, because this is what we have been hearing in the last few years when media talked about bird flu and they'll try explain that issue with these subtypes a little bit of history as well.

00:09:08: how current situation looks like.

00:09:10: The H-five subtype isn't known for quite some time.

00:09:13: it was first detected in nineteen fifty nine in Scotland where it caused an outbreak actually killed a lot of birds there and was the problem for chicken farms.

00:09:26: And people realized that there's two versions of this virus, There is low pathogenic avian influenza HV we call it LPAI so Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza and then there are highly pathogenic version called Highly Pathogenic Aveninfluenza HPAI.

00:09:47: There's actually only a very small difference between these two versions of HV and that difference is just a few amino acids in the hemagglutinin, in the spike protein of the virus.

00:10:01: So typically this hemaglutinins have to be cut into two pieces In order to Be active And then in order to have infectious virus.

00:10:12: so there's a cleavage site in the middle of the protein.

00:10:17: Typically, that cleavage set consists of one basic amino acid.

00:10:23: And then there's broad cases typically in the airways or the gut... ...that can cleave that hemagglutinin and that means that infectious virus is produced.

00:10:35: But it also means that the virus can only replicate on the respiratory tract where it can be cleaved.

00:10:41: It can go to other cells in the body because it can't grow there, because the hemagglutinin cannot get activated.

00:10:48: And that's good!

00:10:49: Now there are versions of HV where that cleavage site is a little bit different.

00:10:55: instead of having one basic amino acid here There're multiple basic amino acids called this bolibasic or multi-basic cleavageside and now these hemaglutinine can be cut into two pieces by broad days and basically all cells in the body.

00:11:15: And that's bad because it allows the virus to spread throughout the body, including... ...to the brain!

00:11:23: That is what makes these viruses highly pathogenic.

00:11:27: Often you have a low-pathogenic strain which spontaneously mutates through an insertion of a sequence there….

00:11:36: …and becomes highly pathogenic.

00:11:38: And that's really, again a problem for chicken farms.

00:11:42: It is also a problem of wildlife and it can be big problems in humans as well.

00:11:48: So most low-petogenic HV and one strains are basically pretty harmless to birds.

00:11:56: but if this virus becomes highly petogenic and acquires this polybasic cleavage site then As I mentioned, it can grow throughout the body of a bird including the brain.

00:12:08: It can lead to all kinds of hemorrhagic symptoms.

00:12:12: so bleeding through out the body basically looks like Ebola in chicken but is actually more deadly than Ebola if chickens are infected with this hydropathogenic virus they typically die between two and five days after getting infected.

00:12:29: as i said the virus replicates over the body and typically close to a hundred percent of the infected chickens die.

00:12:37: So again, big problem for poultry farms but also wild birds.

00:12:40: until nineteen ninety-seven that year was yeah this is a problem if you're chicken or human because it's not a problem because there are chicken virus or bird virus.

00:12:51: But this changed in nineteen ninety seven.

00:12:54: In nineteen ninety seven there was an outbreak of unusual influenza in Hong Kong that was associated with live bird markets.

00:13:02: Eighteen people got infected and six died, And it turned out this was highly pathogenic age five and one virus.

00:13:11: actually it was genetically traced back to isolates from the previous year From nineteen ninety-six when a highly pathogenic virus showed up.

00:13:23: This lineage is called a Gu-squang-dong, and actually all the HV viruses that we have problems with right now trace back to dead lineages.

00:13:34: The authorities in Hong Kong reacted pretty quickly.

00:13:37: basically closed initially their live bird markets then put in all kinds of frozen regulations to make them safe And initially the virus disappeared.

00:13:46: The problem was few years later It came back in two thousand three and it reappeared all over Asia initially.

00:13:54: In Southeast Asia was found Indonesia, Cambodia Thailand Vietnam China But then also in Mongolia for example so a little bit north northwest And cost a lot of infections in birds but also human infections and pretty severe human infections including deaths you know, the worry that it could cause a pandemic.

00:14:21: And you can imagine a virus.

00:14:23: is that severe right?

00:14:24: If that causes a pandemic... You know.. That would have huge impact!

00:14:32: I think back then there was story about H-Five and one even made to cover of Times magazine.

00:14:40: There were lot talk about potential this virus could cause pandemic.

00:14:45: So the virus did not cause a pandemic back in two thousand three but it started to spread westwards from southeast Asia through migratory birds.

00:14:54: I mentioned earlier that the virus is often very deadly for birds, uh... But there's bird species that seem to be relatively resistant.

00:15:02: they get infected They don't really become sick and can still fly long distances and spread the virus.

00:15:11: Mallards, for example is such a species that's typically pretty unaffected but they've spread the viruses very well.

00:15:18: And so this exactly what happened.

00:15:20: birds migrated via their flyways towards the west and spread to Central Asia To the Middle East The Nile Delta For example.

00:15:30: it was major hub of migratory birds.

00:15:33: It has been hotspot for each five and one.

00:15:35: for long time now The virus also spread into Europe and into Africa.

00:15:41: And over time more and more human infections occurred, again these infections were typically transmissions from birds to humans not human-to-human transmission... ...and overtime about nine hundred infections were recorded.. ..and out of this approximately nine hundred infected people approximately half died, so that's a case fidelity rate of about fifty percent which is super high.

00:16:08: There have been serological studies to look at how many people actually got infected with the virus in certain areas and it turns out that many more people got exposed to the virus and get infected but basically didn't end up in hospital or developing symptoms.

00:16:25: And so assumption was that infection fidelity rates The true rate of deaths compared to the true rate infections is much lower than case fidelity rates.

00:16:40: My guess is that it's closer to two-to three percent, which still pretty high but nowhere close to fifty per cent that the case fidelity rate would suggest.

00:16:52: Still very dangerous virus and I think its bad news if you get infected with this.

00:16:59: important point was that this virus spreads well from bird to bird but historically it has not spread from human-to-human and actually doesn't spread very.

00:17:14: This ability of these viruses to spread from mammal-to-mammal is tested in the laboratory.

00:17:20: In a ferret model, ferrets can be infected with influenza viruses and if you infect them with human influenza virus they transmit the virus onto their cage mates either via direct contact but also through air.

00:17:34: But when you infect it by age five or one infection doesn't spread.

00:17:38: And so this model is used to assess risk and ability for certain viruses to spread in humans.

00:17:44: And so far, for these historic age fives they didn't do that and thats great!

00:17:50: That's probably the reason why we haven't had an age five pandemic.

00:17:54: but of course it can still cause very severe infections in humans and death.

00:18:00: Influenza viruses are RNA viruses and RNA viruses mutate quite a bit.

00:18:04: this is also what Age Five did.

00:18:06: over time While it was spreading throughout Eurasia and Africa, It also diversified.

00:18:13: And many different variants developed.

00:18:16: we call these variants glades.

00:18:18: These glades refer to the hemagglutinin.

00:18:21: That's important to say, because these HV viruses can also re-assort and then acquire different noraminidases.

00:18:27: So often they are HV in one but there also exist as HVN two, HV N five, HvN six and the HVn eight.

00:18:35: But the clade always refers to the hemagglutinin.

00:18:39: so initially that was clade zero.

00:18:41: Then we got clade I, clade II And over time as the virus evolved this got more complicated and the virus that is now causing issues globally, it's called Clade-II.III.IV.IVB.

00:18:57: You don't have to remember that.

00:18:59: I think it's a complicated overly complicated nomenclature.

00:19:04: i didn't come up with it but maybe there somebody who can come up as a simpler one in the future.

00:19:12: so The big travel maker right now is Clade

00:19:14: II.III.,

00:19:15: IV.IVb.

00:19:17: But there also another clade that is locally to Cambodia and Vietnam, and that's Klaid- two point three point two point one.

00:19:27: So if you hear about cases in Cambodia or Vietnam... That's typically due to Klaide-two point three points.

00:19:34: two point One.

00:19:35: all right but we want to talk about this.

00:19:37: Klaides- Two point Three point four point Four B. so this virus seems to be very fit especially as H five and one in the each five and One constellation and it started to spread widely in twenty-twenty Europe.

00:19:52: Infected a lot of birds, also species that are often not affected by avian influenza or not infected by H five n one so seems be pretty fit And then spread into Africa and eastwards through Asia and in winter twenty-one, twenty-two.

00:20:11: It spreads north America again via migratory birds.

00:20:16: Initially the spread or the intrusion into North America was via Iceland, but there were additional introductions later from Asia as well.

00:20:28: And then the virus started to spread relatively quickly in North America than to Central America and South America.

00:20:35: it is now even Antarctica.

00:20:38: Actually the only continent that's free of age five, of this K- two three four four B currently is Australia.

00:20:46: Everywhere else it has been found.

00:20:49: I should also say what we see in North America not just age five and one.

00:20:53: there are also age five N-five That is circulating again.

00:20:58: It´s the same HA but this virus resorted And now present with different neuraminidase.

00:21:08: As I mentioned already, this plate of H-V seems to be fitter than older plates.

00:21:14: It is able to spread into many different bird populations.

00:21:20: it actually has caused really big die offs for birds and that's a huge problem in endangered species.

00:21:26: For example Californian condors are at risk.

00:21:30: they have been actually vaccinated against H-v To make sure that they survive because there only very few left.

00:21:37: And through these wild bird outbreaks, the virus also made it into poultry farms and of course caused huge economic issues there as well.

00:21:48: Over the last few years in North America specifically in the US we have seen this with egg prices going up for example but that has happened in other countries too.

00:21:58: so a big issue in terms of wildlife preservation is an important issue.

00:22:06: What we also see with this clade is that large number of mammals got infected.

00:22:11: So these are typically either predators or scavengers, that feed on infected dead birds.

00:22:18: and what you see?

00:22:19: in North America for example there's a lot.

00:22:21: foxes raccoons coyotes but even bears got infected through the route by eating dead or sick birds.

00:22:32: they can have pretty severe infections, the virus also makes it to their brain.

00:22:36: They get neurological symptoms and these H-V infections in this animals can be really deadly.

00:22:45: Typically these are dead antinfections meaning that you know a predator eats a dead bird or sick bird gets infected then dies but doesn't necessarily spread the virus through other mammals.

00:23:00: so thats meant with a dead ant infection.

00:23:03: However, mammal-to-mammal spread with this nucleate of HV has been suspected in fur farms in Europe.

00:23:12: In Mink in Spain and also in foxes in Finland.

00:23:17: And mammal to mammal spread is also suspected in marine mammals in North and South America.

00:23:24: That can be problematic not just because marine mammals are endangered They diet relatively high rates when they get infected But if the virus spreads in them, it adapts to mammalian cells.

00:23:38: And that means... It might actually be getting better at replicating human cells too!

00:23:45: That's of course an issue and so.... ...that is something people worry about quite a bit because these viruses then circulate in marine mammals for example may have much better chance of infecting humans than spreading from human-to-human.

00:24:02: In spring, twenty-twenty four something surprising happened.

00:24:07: H five and one was detected in cows and dairy cattle in Texas.

00:24:13: And that was surprising because historically influenza A has not been found in cattle.

00:24:19: There's other influenza viruses That can infect cattle Influenza D virus for example but not influenza A viruses.

00:24:26: So it is super surprising.

00:24:28: And the problem was that the virus actually spread quickly across dairy cattle herds in the US.

00:24:36: The idea is there's a lot of transport, these are big farms and exchange of cows between them so on and so forth.

00:24:44: So this is how the virus spreads between these dairy herds.

00:24:47: very likely More than one thousand farms have been affected over time.

00:24:55: The interesting part In the cause, the virus doesn't necessarily cause respiratory infections.

00:25:02: It actually infects other and it replicates in milk glands.

00:25:10: And there's a lot of viruses that are secreted through the milk.

00:25:15: With very high levels of viruses in milk often much higher than what you get when you grow the virus into laboratory... ...it turns out that the virus spreads from cow to cow mostly via milking equipment.

00:25:31: So basically these cows are milked by this milking machines and then virus is sticking on these machines, so that's how it gets transmitted from one cow to another cow.

00:25:42: The problem also if there're a lot of viruses in the milk...the milk is dangerous right?

00:25:47: And you feed raw milk to cats for example.

00:25:51: This what happens on farms often And the virus has also been found in mice on these farms, so the mice seem to consume some of their milk and then get infected.

00:26:03: It's also shown that there is spread from dairy cattle into bird populations... ...to wild bird populations which also fuels a spread off the virus.

00:26:13: Of course if you pasteurize your milk or heat it up You kill the virus but not infectious anymore.

00:26:19: but virus genome has been detected in milk bought in supermarkets, again this is not infectious virus.

00:26:27: This is just a genome because of the pasteurization and there was no infections anymore.

00:26:32: But it seems that at least some point the infections were so widespread.

00:26:37: even supermarket milk had traces of the virus And very recently while situation seemed to have improved There also was case transmission dairy cattle in the Netherlands.

00:26:51: In this case, it doesn't seem like they were spread from one farm to another but there was a detection at one farm.

00:26:59: of course these infections and cows are also problematic because cows are memos too And if the virus replicates into cows then spreads from cow-to-cow.

00:27:07: It might also gain the ability to grow better human cells.

00:27:13: So that's an animals.

00:27:14: But we also had human infections so far A little bit more than seven Seventy human infections with this K-two, point three, point four, point for B H. five viruses have been detected globally.

00:27:29: Most of them were mild.

00:27:31: most of them are either birth to human or cow to human transmissions.

00:27:37: when people get infected from cows the symptoms often include conjunctivitis so infection of the eye.

00:27:45: The reason for that is work with the milking equipment.

00:27:50: there might be splashes of milk that end up in their eyes and then the virus can replicate.

00:27:58: There's also a small number of cases where it is not clear how people got infected, those are worrisome because if Of course, there's the risk that this is already human-to-human transmission.

00:28:15: And in these cases where it was suspected... ...there were of course investigations and turned out to be no human spread so just unknown how people got infected.

00:28:26: As I said most infections are mild which is in contrast with what we historically know about HV and V infections in humans but also several cases severe infection in Latin America in the US, Canada and there are also deaths.

00:28:44: There's one recorded death in China with a Klaid II-VIVB virus.

00:28:49: that is one in Mexico two in the

00:28:51: U.S.,

00:28:52: One of them was in Louisiana with Hv and I and one relatively recent in Washington state which was with an HvNV virus.

00:29:02: so they HvAJ was from the same clade, but it had resorted and acquired an N-V neuraminidase form another even influenza virus.

00:29:14: And that caused a fatal infection... ...and the virus hasn't spread so far from human to human!

00:29:20: So basically that's good because if you can do this efficiently then it could cause a pandemic.

00:29:27: But there is of course worry and the virus can change over time, right?

00:29:32: On one side when it grows and replicates a lot and transmits from mammal to mammal like in the cows or in marine mammals.

00:29:40: It can actually acquire mutations that make it easier for the virus to grow in humans.

00:29:45: And then there's another mechanism that the virus has to gain their ability and replicate better in humans, maybe spread from human to human.

00:29:56: This is this reassortment I mentioned right?

00:29:58: So this H-VN-I virus for example could infect let say a dairy worker... ...and may be in winter season.

00:30:07: the dairy worker might be infected at same time with H-one N one or H three two seasonal influenza.

00:30:15: And if that happens, the H-V and I virus can exchange genomic segments... ...genomic information with seasonal influenza virus.

00:30:24: You might end up with a virus which has then H-v on its surface so it's an hemagglutinin to which humans have no or very little immunity.

00:30:34: but replication machinery and matrix protein for example may come from the human from the seasonal influenza.

00:30:42: That's very well adapted to growth and transmission in humans.

00:30:45: And you might end up with a virus that then actually can spread from human-to-human, but is not detected very well by the human immune system... ...and of course this would be problematic because this virus like could start a pandemic!

00:31:00: So for that reason it's really important to minimize the contact that humans have with these HV and ONE viruses.

00:31:08: People work with potentially infected animals in the dairy industry, or in the poultry industry.

00:31:15: Or if they interact with potentially-infected wild birds They should protect themselves.

00:31:21: This can be done by wearing gloves, wearing masks and a face shield when you're working with cows.

00:31:29: What also helps is to get seasonal influenza vaccine because if you're vaccinated against seasonal influenza, the chances that you have a seasonal influenza infection are lower.

00:31:40: And then there's chance of getting co-infected with seasonal influenza and age five or one is also lower.

00:31:46: so seasonal influenza vaccines help reduce risk.

00:31:51: And then in some European countries and also Canada, H-V vaccines are available.

00:31:57: In some European Countries they're offered to people who work with potentially infected animals.

00:32:04: They offer to veterinarians, to farmers

00:32:06: etc.,

00:32:08: If you have vaccination against the H- V of course it's very unlikely that you get infected or that your have a co-infection for seasonal influenza viruses.

00:32:21: for people who are not necessarily professionally interacting with potentially infected animals, it's also important to know that you should stay away from specifically sick birds or dead birds and It is also important keep your pets away from sick or dead bird.

00:32:40: Dogs can get infected with age five in one And that also can be problematic.

00:32:46: So it's really important to stay away from potentially infected wildlife.

00:32:51: One big issue is also live bird markets, right?

00:32:54: Where chickens, ducks and so on and so forth are brought to be sold as life animals... ...and they can of course be infected.

00:33:03: That was for example what happened in a Hong Kong in nineteen ninety seven.

00:33:07: There were transmission from infected birds at live bird market to humans And often when we think about live bird markets, we think of Asian countries.

00:33:17: But the truth is that we even have live bird market in New York City and there has been outbreaks of H-five and one in live birds markets as well also in other cities around the United States.

00:33:31: so I think this needs to be closely monitored.

00:33:36: So age five and one comes with risks.

00:33:39: And there's certainly a risk that this virus could cause a pandemic in the future, but I don't think we're in any situation right now where this pandemic is imminent?

00:33:50: There are huge risks that age-five pandemics would start next weeks or months... ...but it's definitely a situation which needs to be monitored!

00:34:03: Covid-nineteen started, we didn't have any vaccines.

00:34:08: We did not have any antiviral medications and we did know much about the virus that caused Covid-Nineteen.

00:34:14: so it was a pretty bad situation.

00:34:17: with age five in one The situation could be really bad too right.

00:34:21: if the virus causes a pandemic It's very likely there are lot of people who would die but we will also better prepared.

00:34:28: first of all we understand influenza viruses quite well Because they circulate in humans, they have caused pandemics.

00:34:35: In the past we study avian influenza viruses and know a lot about them.

00:34:40: We know that these viruses can be stopped with certain countermeasures including masks.

00:34:45: But we could also switch vaccine production from seasonal influenza vaccines to this new to potential new Pandemic age five and one very quickly.

00:34:56: There's a lot of protection capacity for vaccines globally And it doesn't have to be new vaccines, right?

00:35:02: It does not need a new generation of mRNA vaccines.

00:35:06: We can make old-fashioned inactivated virus vaccines as they are used for seasonal influenza.

00:35:12: we just switch the strain and so that's good because anyway... ...we could use relatively established very safe vaccines That I'll just switch this new strain.

00:35:24: And in addition to that, we have antivirals that use for seasonal influenza and they do work at least in animal models.

00:35:32: For H-v and I as well or even flu as well.

00:35:35: specifically the newer generation like Baloxovir which is medication that inhibits a function of the polymerase of influenza virus has been shown to work very well against H-V and I infections in animal model.

00:35:50: so we certainly would also have antibirals already that work against these infections.

00:35:56: Of course, again an H five and one pandemic would still be severe and problematic but in a way we are much better prepared than for Covid-nineteen.

00:36:06: But certainly the situation needs constant monitoring And whatever can be done to minimize the exposure of humans To age five and One should Be Done and That Includes Counter measures to make sure that The virus is eradicated from dairy Farms but also making sure that there's little outbreaks in poultry farms so humans don't get exposed.

00:36:29: Yeah, was it about age five and one?

00:36:32: It is a virus now around globally in the wild bird population we actually see increases in cases every winter.

00:36:43: This has now been going on for a few years.

00:36:46: We see this in Europe, we've seen it North America.

00:36:48: In the winter season.

00:36:49: you'll see more infections involved birds and then you also see more transmissions to poultry operations.

00:36:55: So I guess we have to get used to it but... And be able keep an eye on them.

00:37:00: But if they pay attention probably can manage that situation Alright!

00:37:05: That's all today with Virological.

00:37:08: Thanks For Listening In.

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