The following is an excerpt.
Fox News reported on Friday that the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China is taking on characteristics of the same genetic diversity that was seen in outbreaks of the H7 virus in the Netherlands and Italy some years ago.
Marion Koopmans, head of virology at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment said it appears that the virus has been “spreading quite a bit, and it’s important to understand where exactly that is going on.”
Scientists think the apparent genetic diversity indicates the virus has the ability to mutate repeatedly, and will continue to do so, possibly leading to becoming transmissible between humans.
View the original article here: Mutating bird flu raises risk of human-to-human transmission