It was a glorious day for field work on the shores of Delaware Bay. The sun cast a glow on the beach. The dune grass whispered. AND the bird droppings were fresh and abundant.
“Here’s one,” said Pamela McKenzie, a researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tennessee, pointing to one white patch and then another. “There, there and there.”
Over the next two hours, the researchers collected bird droppings. Their goal: stay one step ahead of bird flua group of bird-adapted viruses that experts have long worried could evolve to spread easily between humans and potentially trigger the next pandemic.
Every spring, this part of southern New Jersey becomes a hotbed for bird flu. Shorebirds heading north alight on local beaches to rest, shedding viruses along the way. And every year for the past four decades, St. Jude scientists have flown into the city to collect the deposits.
The job requires keen eyes and knees that can withstand hours of squatting on the sometimes rugged shoreline. “They’re not pretty sandy beaches,” said Lisa Kercher, a member of the St. Jude team. “They are thick, muddy and disgusting beaches that are full of bird droppings”.
But these poop-covered shorelines are helping scientists learn more about how avian influenza evolves, how it behaves in the wild, and what it would take for these bird viruses to become a global public health threat. These questions have become even more urgent as the United States grapples with the largest bird flu outbreak in history.caused by a new, highly pathogenic version of a virus known as H5N1.
Wild waterfowl—including ducks and shorebirds—are the natural reservoirs for influenza A viruses, which exist in subtypes. Wild birds carry relatively benign versions of these viruses. But flu viruses can change rapidly, accumulating new mutations and swapping genetic material. These changes can and sometimes do turn a routine virus into a lethal one, like the version of H5N1 currently circulating.
The new H5N1 strain first appeared in North America in late 2021 and spread rapidly across the continent. It led to the deaths of nearly 60 million farm birds, killed scores of wild birds and even succumbed to some unfortunate mammals, from red foxes to gray seals.
The St. Jude team found no traces of H5N1 on the beach last spring. But at that time the virus had not yet reached the areas where shorebirds winter in South America. By this spring, it had, meaning the birds could bring it back with them. “We are absolutely concerned that it will appearKercher said.
If the team finds H5N1 this year, said Richard Webby, an influenza expert on the St. Jude team, members will look for any changes in the virus. The virus has already evolved remarkably since its arrival in North America, the team reported in a recent paper, based on analysis of viral samples isolated from birds outside the Delaware Bay region. The new variants they found have not acquired the ability to spread easily between mammals, but some are capable of causing severe neurological symptoms in mammals.
If the virus shows up in samples from Delaware Bay this year, it will be another sign that H5N1 is gaining a foothold in North America.
All the researchers who came to the beach can say is that they had not yet found the new H5N1 virus.
emily anthes
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6757752, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-06-12 20:50:05
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