Influenza What is avian influenza? It’s a virus.
Bird flu, sometimes referred to as avian influenza, is an infection brought on by a particular strain of the flu virus that mostly affects birds and other animals.
influenza, the virus that causes it structurally An orthomyxovirus is defined as a virus containing the glycoproteins neuraminidase (N) and hemagglutinin (H).
In terms of functioning, neuraminidase facilitates the virus’s passage through host cells and aids in its replication, while hemagglutinin helps the viral particles attach to infected cells by clumping red blood cells together.
Is it possible for people to contract bird flu, often known as avian influenza?
Does the current bird flu pandemic pose a risk to public health?
According to virology, the influenza A virus—of which the strain H5N1 is one of its subtypes—has also been responsible for significant human epidemics, such as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the 1977 Russian flu pandemic, and the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
“Only viruses of the genus have been isolated from birds and termed avian influenza (AI) viruses, but viruses with all 16 haemagglutinin (H1–H16) and all 9 neuraminidase (N1–N9) influenza A subtypes in the majority of possible combinations have been isolated from avian species,” according to the research article titled “An overview of the epidemiology of avian influenza” by Dennis J. Alexander.
