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Symptoms and Causes of Bird Flu
Symptoms of bird flu in humans resemble those of the human variety of influenza and include fever, sore throat, cough, headache, and muscle aches, which appear following an incubation period of several days. Severe infection can result in conjunctivitis or such life-threatening complications as bacterial or viral pneumonia and acute respiratory illness.
Bird flu in avian species occurs in two forms, one mild and the other highly virulent and contagious; the latter form has been termed fowl plague. Mutation of the virus causing the mild form is believed to have given rise to the virus causing the severe form. The infectious agents of bird flu are any of several subtypes of type A orthomyxovirus. Other subtypes of this virus are responsible for most cases of human influenza and for the great influenza pandemics of the past .
Genetic analysis suggests that the influenza A subtypes that afflict mainly nonavian animals, including humans, pigs, whales, and horses, derive at least partially from bird flu subtypes. All the subtypes are distinguished on the basis of variations in two proteins found on the surface of the viral particle—hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). The 1997 bird flu outbreak in Hong Kong was found to be caused by H5N1. This subtype, first identified in terns in South Africa in 1961, has been responsible for nearly all laboratory-confirmed bird flu infections in humans and for the most devastating outbreaks in poultry. Other bird flu subtypes recognized to cause disease in birds and humans are H7N2, H7N3, H7N7, and H9N2.
Waterfowl such as wild ducks are thought to be primary hosts for all bird flu subtypes.
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