Flu Pandemic, Climate Change May Be Linked, Study Says
A shifting global climate pattern could portend a flu pandemic, and possibly an opportunity to stop the virus early, a study suggests.
The link, according to researchers, is weather’s influence on the migratory patterns of wild birds, the primary pool for human flu.
“Changes in flight patterns — length, stopovers — can bring together bird species that otherwise wouldn’t intermingle,” said Jeffrey Shaman, an environmental health scientist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, lead researcher of the preliminary study.
And while mixing with feathered strangers, particularly on water, birds can share viruses orally and fecally. Multiple versions of the flu may then enter a bird’s cells, genetically mingling into a “radically different” viral strain “to which the human population has never been exposed,” and are therefore susceptible, Shaman explained.
“That’s what seeds a pandemic,” Shaman told The Huffington Post. Other animals and their viruses may also participate in the pool party. The virus behind the 2009 swine flu pandemic, for example, was a mixture of genetic material from human, bird and pig flu.
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