It is unlikely that you will contract bird flu just yet…
by zoss in scienza
… that is, of course, unless you are a bird. Here’s why:
The H5N1 influenza strain struggles to infect cells high up in the human airway, significantly limiting the extent to which victims can pick up the virus and pass it on by coughing and sneezing
and:
The H5N1 virus can mutate in many different ways, one of which is to change so that it starts infecting the upper respiratory tract. This would make it more transmissible among humans. However, if this happened, it would also be easier to treat as infection would not start deep down in the lung.
