Rats, flies likely to spread avian influenza

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The news just keeps getting better and better....

How is it that this virus is capable of infecting so many hosts?

Unless this explains what appearred to be human to human transmission. No, this is still worse.

Two reasons:

1) They are manufactured

2) They are a freak of nature. Most probably designed by mother Earth to waste us all.

Super bugs, super flu - same mechanism. Prions. Prions hitchhike on and/or infect microbes - and "ectoparasites" like flies also 'harbor' prions.


"Animal prion infections, such as scrapie (sheep) and "mad cow disease" (cattle), have shown a pattern of horizontal transmission in farm conditions and several ectoparasites have been shown to harbor prion rods in laboratory experiments. Fly larvae and mites were exposed to brain-infected material and were readily able to transmit scrapie to hamsters. New lines of evidence have confirmed that adult flies are also able to express prion proteins. ...Several cell types found on the human skin, including keratinocytes, fibroblasts and lymphocytes, are susceptible to the abnormal infective isoform of the prion protein, which transforms the skin to produce a potential target for prion infection."
Int J Dermatol. 2003 Jun;42(6):425-9. Could ectoparasites act as vectors for prion diseases? Lupi O. Center for Vaccine Development, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, TX, USA. PMID: 12786866


This 1986 paper describes how "proteinaceous capsids" (prions) use viruses as vehicles of transmission...
* "Viral influences on aflatoxin formation by Aspergillus flavus." Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 24:248-252. Schmidt FR, Lemke PA, Esser K (1986)

"Epidemiological observations indicate that a microbial vector is responsible for the transmission of natural prion disease in sheep and goats … ...It is proposed that many microbial proteins may be capable of replicating themselves in mammalian cells eliciting and sustaining thereby degenerative and/or autoimmune reactions subsequent to infections with microorganisms."
* Med Hypotheses. 1999 Aug;53(2):91-102. Is the pathogen of prion disease a microbial protein? Fuzi M. Budapest Institute of National Public Health and Medical Officer Service, Hungary. PMID: 10532698

* Dangerous liaisons between a microbe and the prion protein. J Exp Med. 2003 Jul 7;198(1):1-4. Aguzzi A, Hardt WD. PMID: 12847133


Mad Cow and AIDS

There are survivors of H5N1 flu, it's not 100% lethal and last time i've checked, prion diseases are either ineradicable or fatal, and prions do not explain why infected people test postive for H5N1, do they?


Anyway, this virus' durability makes it utterly dangerous, i now begin to understand the scare a bit.

Hmmm. Not sure I understand your questions LL. ...Loam asked, "How is it that this virus is capable of infecting so many hosts?" because H5N1 crosses pecies barriers easily like all Type A viruses. My speculation is that it's the proteins - they work by lock and key type mechansms and H5N1 has a master key...

FYI - my take on H5N1 is that it's NOT the fatality rate that makes it so dangerous, but rather its ability to cause debilitating chronic disease. Wipes out huge productive segments of society, leaves the 'still well' to care for them. An economic/social nightmare.

Well, it appeared to me at the first glance as if you were attributing this particular flu to a prion (only) infection, that's all.

?
Please explain why it shouldnt' be able to, also, this is just a newspaper clipping, what journal did they publish their results in?

[edit on 20-2-2006 by Nygdan]

Nope. It's just that prions do hitchhike on microbes, and appear to underlie many of the new diseases we're seeing. My hypothesis is that it's a prion that enables this flu to cross species barriers - not that it's primarily a prion disease.

Nygdan - historically, most diseases tended to be species specific. Now we're seeing a lot that cross species barriers. As far as H5N1 goes, it's a Type A influenza virus and so does cross species barriers, without acquiring new genetic material.

Ie., H5N1 bird flu is a Type A virus, which can infect cats, whales, seals, and other animals. As stated in theFebruary 2004 WHO Report on H5N1: "Several studies have shown that a small number of mammalian species, including pigs, seals, whales, mink, and ferrets, are susceptible to natural infection with influenza viruses that are purely avian in their genetic make-up." The Mayo Clinic reports, "type A influenza infects both people and animals, including birds, pigs, horses, whales and seals."

Also see: "Bird Flu: Why Worry Now?"