Perhaps It’ll Be an H7 Pandemic

The possibility that an avian influenza strain will eventually jump species to produce a human pandemic is of ongoing concern. Research has generally focused on H5N1 viruses, which have caused extensive avian disease in the Eastern Hemisphere. However, H7-subtype viruses have also produced recent avian outbreaks, and such viruses might evolve to cause human disease. Avian and human strains differ in their receptor-binding preferences, with avian strains binding predominantly to α2–3 sialic acid (SA) glycans on host cell surfaces, and human strains predominantly to α2–6 SA. Now, investigators have evaluated the receptor-binding preferences of recent H7 strains and assessed the transmissibility of these viruses in a ferret model that mimics h…