Cow to cow H5N1

[prepperme]

Quiet here. Anyone following the officially suspected cow to cow transmission of H5N1 in Idaho? It has me a little spooked. I didn't know much about flu in cattle, and still don't, though there's an interesting 2019 review here:
https://doi.org/10.3390/v11060561

Meta: anyone recommend a more lively discussion forum re such things? I miss flublogia, which seems mostly to have died (except flutrackers).

https://agri.idaho.gov/main/hpai-detection-in-idaho-dairy-herd/

I've just read that the virus in the man in Texas is a mutation..
Feels a little bit like it did at the start of COVID

Here's the link to the actual thread on X
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1775505291771048213?t=Krj3ZHnKkwZqCfE8PbMjBA&s=19

I saw that but I think Eric's post is a bit misleading. The mutation in question is PB2 E627K (that is, at position 627 of the PB2 gene, an amino acid E was replaced by a K) which has often been seen in mammals infected with avian flus (especially H7N9 in fact). It's not surprising or IMHO especially worrying; it's one of the mutations you expect to see. (When a virus infects an animal there are many many millions of copies, and all possible mutations occur, including this one. The ones that are beneficial are likely to be selected, and so they come to dominate. PB2 E627K is a mutation that is known to be beneficial in mammals.)

This podcast may interest you, from Microbe TV.

Influenza H5N1 virus in cows' milk with Dr Richard Webby who is an expert on influenza and pandemic preparedness.

Other panelists are Prof Vincent Racaniello (host) - world expert on polio virus, Dr Brianne Barker, Prof of Immunology at Drew University USA, Dr Alan Dove (virology PhD but now a science journalist).

TWiV (This Week in Virology) have covered influenza before so if you're interested it's always worth searching for other podcasts about it.

It's avian flu that has me shocked. The jump from birds to humans has been made. It's currently on the WHO website doing the rounds yet no one seems even mildly concerned as it's not jumping from human to human...yet.

This is avian flu. It's jumped to a lot of mammals, including a lot of dairy herds in America which has led to a couple of human infections. Plus it's decimating seal populations where large numbers of pups have died.

Ah I didn't realise this. It's very concerning. I know the NHS is playing it down as hardly affecting humans.

Unless you have human to human transmission then it's not too much of a threat for us (not great for animal populations where this does occur of course!). That's what has to happen for alarm bells to go off and truly I'm not looking forward to that after the recent pandemic and how people reacted.

Just listening to another podcast on the subject and an area of concern is pigs kept in close proximity to dairy cattle. I jotted down what was said:

Pigs have receptor sites in their intestine and respiratory tract for both human and avian influenza viruses. If a pig is co-infected with both bird and human influenza viruses simultaneously then reassortment can occur of the genetic viral material and this could result in a new virus that is capable of causing a pandemic. This happened in 2009 with H1N1.

The Enquiry on World Service radio did a programme on this.

Cows catch it but aren't as ill as birds. (Birds seem to die quite quickly )Cow workers have caught it off cows. But it is not being monitored in the USA as much. (Various understandable reasons)

I don't think it spreads from the cow workers to other people.... yet.

The pigs thing is useful to know.