New Bird Flu Seen Having Some Markers of Airborne Killer

From Bloomberg News
By Simeon Bennett - Apr 6, 2013
Excerpts: 
 
“That’s certainly not good news,” said Fouchier, who reviewed a gene sequencing of H7N9 published by Chinese health authorities. “This virus really doesn’t look like a bird virus anymore; it looks like a mammalian virus.”  
-snip-

‘More Concern’

Fouchier authored a study last year that showed five genetic tweaks to the deadly H5N1 virus, which has killed more than 600 people since 2003, made it airborne in ferrets, the mammals whose response to flu most closely resembles that of humans.

One of the mutations he made is in an enzyme called polymerase; another was in a protein called hemagglutinin on the surface of the virus. H7N9 has both mutations, he said.

Full article:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-05/new-bird-flu-seen-having-some-markers-of-airborne-killer.html