Scientists in the US are collecting bird feces as part of their influenza sampling projects to prevent the next pandemic. The shores of the Delaware Bay, where about 25 different species of birds are seen each spring, serve as a “treasure” for his research work.
With H5N1 bird flu – a dangerous flu virus – spreading rapidly through dairy cattle and poultry herds in the US, researchers have shut down their work, CNN reports.
“It’s a treasure trove here,” said Dr. Pamela McKenzie, who with Patrick Seiler is part of a National Institutes of Health-funded research team at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The team has been collecting bird droppings for the last four decades.
how it started
It is believed that Dr. Robert Webster, a virologist from New Zealand, was the first to understand that flu viruses were coming from the intestines of birds. This project is the brainchild of a 92-year-old man. Although he is now retired, Webster joins the team whenever he can.
Speaking to CNN, Webster said they were “most surprised” to see that “instead of the respiratory tract, where we thought it was, it was replicating in the intestinal tract and they were expelling it into the water and spreading it Were”.
Bird feces, also known as guano, coming from infected birds is mixed with the virus.
Two of the known influenza subtypes have been found in birds, while the other two have so far been associated with bats.
In 1985, Webster and his team made their first trip to the Delaware Bay. At that time, the team found that 20% of the bird stool samples they collected contained influenza viruses. Since then, the area has served as an ideal observatory to track flu viruses traveling in birds.
predicting the future
Researchers believe the discovery of a new flu virus here could help give the world an early warning.
Dr. Richard Webby, who now oversees the project, has called it one of the longest-running influenza sampling projects of the same bird population.
“To predict bad things, whether it’s tornadoes, whether it’s a pandemic, you have to understand what’s normal now… from there we can figure out when things are different, when things change hosts and those,” Webby said. What drives the changes.” , who leads the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals at St. Jude.
