Taiwan : First Case of New Bird Flu Identified in Human Patient

From Time, excerpt :

" The latest version is called H6N1, and represents the first time that this strain of bird flu has jumped from birds to people.

Flu researchers are especially wary of birds, from wild avian species like migrating geese to run-of-the-mill chickens at local poultry markets. They harbor a series of influenza strains that generally don’t make the birds sick, but could cause serious disease in people if if they jumped to human hosts.

In recent years, more bird flu viruses that had never infected people before have been finding new human hosts. Last spring, for example, scientists in China reported the first human cases of H7N9 infections. These viruses previously circulated among birds, but mutations helped  them to survive and sicken people as well.

Now, researchers in Taiwan say another avian flu strain, H6N1, may have made the jump as well. Reporting in the journal Lancet, scientists describe what they found when they analyzed a throat swab from a 20-year old woman who came to the hospital with shortness of breath and flu symptoms. When they sequenced the virus in her sample, they found it was very similar to H6N1 strains that have been found in chickens in the country since the 1970s, with one exception: this H6N1 had a mutation that gave it the ability to stick to human cells and gain entry, causing infection. Specifically, the mutation helped the virus to bind to cells in the human upper airway – a good place for viruses to attach after they are inhaled through the nasal passages."