{"id":91398,"date":"2024-11-03T09:00:33","date_gmt":"2024-11-03T17:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/?p=91398"},"modified":"2024-11-03T09:24:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T17:24:06","slug":"bird-flu-seemingly-infected-pig-in-us-why-is-that-a-concern-for-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/prophecy\/bird-flu-seemingly-infected-pig-in-us-why-is-that-a-concern-for-scientists\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Bird flu’ seemingly infected pig in US–why is that a concern for scientists?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBirds that have been put down because of avian influenza. <\/em>
\n(Photo by Roee Shpernik<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span>)<\/em><\/p>\n

Science News<\/em> reported:<\/p>\n

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Why finding bird flu in a U.S. pig for the first time is raising new worries<\/h2>\n
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The animals can act as \u201cmixing vessels\u201d for human and bird flu viruses<\/em><\/p>\n

At least one pig has picked up bird flu amid an outbreak in poultry on a backyard farm in central Oregon.<\/p>\n

While the infection appears limited to one farm so far, the discovery has raised new alarm bells thanks to pigs\u2019 role as a kind of mixing pot for influenza viruses, potentially leading to genetic mutations that can put people at risk. …<\/p>\n

The risk to people comes from pigs\u2019 long-time standing as flu \u201cmixing vessels.\u201d Influenza viruses break into cells by attaching to a sugar called sialic acid. Viruses from birds and humans typically bind to different kinds of these sialic acid receptors. As a result, avian flus usually aren\u2019t great at infecting people, and vice versa.<\/p>\n

But pigs have both birdlike and humanlike receptors, making them susceptible to not only swine-specific flu strains but also to viruses from birds and humans. If a bird virus and a human virus were to infect the same pig, this provides an opportunity for the viruses to swap genes in a process called reassortment. That can help avian flus adapt in ways that make them better at infecting people, with sometimes devastating consequences.<\/p>\n

Pigs are the suspected source of the strain behind the 1918 influenza pandemic<\/a> (SN: 10\/27\/21)<\/em>. And the 2009 \u201cswine flu\u201d pandemic<\/a> started in pigs (SN: 5\/22\/09<\/em>). A reassortment event may have also happened prior to the ongoing cattle outbreak<\/a> (SN: 5\/16\/24<\/em>). 11\/01\/24 https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/influenza-pig-bird-flu-us<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Bible teaches that humans are not to eat pigs (Deuteronomy 14:8)–but because many do, there are a lot of diseases that have been passed to humans (see also The New Testament Church, History, and Unclean Meats<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Now, it is not just pigs that look to be affected by the bird flu. Here is information from the US Centers for Disease Control related to animal cases of the \u2018bird flu\u2019:<\/p>\n

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Detections in Animals<\/h3>\n