H5N1 Virus

H5N1 Virus

The virus known as H5N1 strain of bird flu virus that has infected most harm either humans or animals. The virus is also known as A (H5N1) virus is epizootic (an epidemic in the cause of non-human creatures) and also panzootic (which can infect many species of animals from a very wide area.

HPAI virus A (H5N1) was first known to kill a flock of chickens in Scotland in 1959, but the virus that emerged at that time was very different from the H5N1 virus at this time. The dominant model of the H5N1 virus that emerged in 2004 evolved from a virus that emerged in 2002 that created the gene of model Z.

The H5N1 virus is divided into 2 models of derivative, the first derivative is a virus that infects humans and birds in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and bird in Laos and Malaysia. The first derivative of this model does not spread to other areas.


While the derivative model of 2 recognizable birds in China, Indonesia, Japan, and North Korea which then spread to the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Virus model 2 is derivative to the virus that causes the infection to humans that occur in the period from 2005 to 2006 in various countries. Genetic analysis has been done to prove that there are 6 models of subclasses of derived models to 2, the 3 of them spread and infect humans in the following countries :

Subclass 1 : Indonesia

Subclass 2 : Europe, Middle East and Africa

3 subclasses : China

H5N1 is actually a model of virus that attacks the galactose receptors that exist on the nose to the lungs in birds that are not found in humans, and attacks only occur around the area of ​​the area of ​​the alveoli in the lungs where oxygen is transmitted through the blood. Therefore, this virus is not easily spread through the air by coughing or sneezing like a common cold virus.

Since it was first discovered in 1997, researchers found that the H5N1 virus continues to evolve with changes in antigenic substance and structure of the internal genes which then can infect several different species.

The virus was first discovered in Hong Kong in 1997 and 2001 are not easily transmitted from one bird to another and not cause lethal disease in some animals. But in 2002, a new model of H5N1 virus emerged, known as the H5N1 virus gene model Z-type gene that becomes dominant, which causes acute illness in the bird population in Hong Kong, including neurological dysfunction and death in ducks and other fowl.

Viruses with the gene model that is the epidemic in Southeast Asia that led to the death of millions of chickens and 2 sub-classes created by the ever-changing virus mutation has caused hundreds of human victims who died. Mutations that occur from this strain increases the viral pathogens that can aggravate the virus attacks and fear to many species will be able to transmit the virus from humans to other humans. The mutation occurs in the bodies of birds that keep the virus for a long time in the body before it finally died from the infection.

Mutations that occur in the H5N1 virus is a characteristic model of influenza virus, wherein the virus is able to combine the two models of different models of influenza viruses that are within 1 receptor models at the same time.

The ability of the virus to mutate produce various models capable of infecting species is due to the variation in the hemagglutinin gene. Genetic mutations in the hemagglutinin gene causing amino acid transfer in akhrinya can change in the hemagglutinin protein's ability to bind to receptors on the cell surface.

These mutations can alter the H5N1 avian influenza virus was unable to infect humans can be easily transmitted from birds to humans. Therefore, researchers are now being Actively trying to understand the nature of this virus, and attempt to genetically modified by inserting two amino acids H1N1 Spanish flu virus into the H5N1 hemagglutinin so it will not become a pandemic H5N1 virus that is harmful to humans as it did in the 1918 outbreak.

The study yielded encouraging results of research in which the obyek can stay healthy though placed in one room with a sick obyek.