Last week, there was a death from the bird flu. Where do things stand today?
Andy Pekosz: We’re seeing signs that this virus is really moving into humans. There was an infection in a person in Louisiana, who apparently acquired the infection because he had a backyard flock of chickens that had become exposed to wild birds. The chickens the person was raising, as well as the wild birds, were found dead. The person who was exposed to H5N1 was hospitalized, and died from the infection.
If that wasn’t serious enough, when the CDC scientists sequenced samples from this individual, they found that the virus had started to mutate at two particular sites that we know are important for H5N1 to adapt to better replicate in humans. This mirrors a case that happened about two months ago in British Columbia. We need to double…