Earler this year there were reports of H5N1 bird flu in various wild
birds in Hong Kong. Today the sequences of those isolates
were released at Los Alamos. The released sequences were from
poultry and wild bird isolates. All HA sequences were 98-99%
identical with the Fujian strain of H5N1 which had been reported in
patients in China
in 2005 and 2006.
In addition, H5N1 sequences from Laos
and Malaysia were also released earlier and those sequences were
also closely related to the sequences from the patients in China.
The HA sequence has a novel cleavage site which is missing a K.
H5N1 sequences from China missing a K in the HA cleavage site have been
reported
since late 2003. These sequences have bee frequently found in
Hunan and Fujian province as well as the quarantined
birds in England.
The widespread presence of the Fujian sequence in China, Hong Kong, and
southeast Asia is cause for concern. New bird and human cases are
being reported in Thailand,
and bird outbreaks have recently been reported in Laos and Vietnam. Source : Recombinomics
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