In early February 2020, China closed more than 50 million people and hindered the spread of new colon viruses. At that time, nobody knew how it was spreading, but Lydia Moraska, a well -known expert at Queensland Institute of Technology in Australia, didn't like the clues she found. γ
It seemed as if the colon virus was spreading in the air, and was ferry by drifting droplets exhaled by infected people. If it is true, standard measurements, such as disinfection of the surface and a few feet from a person with symptoms, are not enough to avoid infection.
Jin Kao, a Chinese science Academy in Beijing, Dr. Moraska and her colleague, has broken a miserable warning. They wrote that ignoring the virus's aerial diffusion would lead to more infectious diseases they wrote. However, when scientists sent comments to medical magazines, they were rejected over and over again.
“Nobody will listen,” said Dr. Moraska.
It took more than two years for the World Health Organization to officially recognize that COVID is spreading in the air. Five years after Dr. Morosca has begun to warn, scientists are more paying attention to how other illnesses spread in the air. At the top of the list is a bird flu.
Last year, the Disease Countermeasures Center recorded 66 people in the United States, which were infected with bird influenza strains called H5N1. Some of them are likely to have become ill by handling birds containing viruses. In March, the Ministry of Agriculture found a cow that was infected with H5N1 and found that animals could pass viruses to people.
If bird flu gains the ability to spread from person to person, it may create the next pandemic. As a result, some influenza experts are worried about changes that may make the virus in the air, drifting with small drops through hospitals, restaurants, and other shared spaces, and the next victims do it. You can inhale in.
“It's very important to have that evidence in advance, so everyone is trying to know how the virus has been sent so that Cobid is not involved in the same situation. I did, “said Kristen K. Coleman, infectious. A sick expert at Maryland University.
Scientists have discussed how influenza virus has spread over a century for more than a century. In 1918, the flu tension called H1N1 eliminated the world and killed more than 50 million. Some American cities treated them as air disease, needed masks in public places, and needed to open windows at school. However, many public health experts were convinced that influenza was directly in contact, such as touching contaminated doorknobs, sneezing and coughing.
H5N1 was first revealed when it was detected in Chinese birds in 1996. The virus was infected with the gastrointestinal tract and spread during stool. For many years, viruses have spread to millions of chickens and other agricultural birds. Hundreds of people have become ill because they mainly deal with sick animals. These casualties developed H5N1 infections in the lungs, which were often deadly. However, the virus could not easily move from one to another.
With the threat of H5n1 spirover in the human group, scientists have come to see how the influenza virus spreads. In one experiment, Thunder Hursty and his colleagues, a virus scholar at Rotterdam in the Netherlands, tested whether H5N1 would spread 4 inches between cage ferrets.
“Animals can't touch each other and can't lick each other,” said Dr. Hurfst. “So the only way to send is through the air.”
When Dr. Hurfst and his colleagues erupted the H5N1 virus with the ferret nose, they developed a pulmonary infection. They did not spread the virus to a healthy ferrets in other cages.
However, Dr. Hurfst and his colleagues discovered that some mutations have enabled H5N1 in the air. These mutations carrying a mutation will spread from one cage to another cage in three of the four tests, and a healthy ferret will be ill.
When scientists shared these results in 2012, there was a fierce debate on whether scientists should intentionally create a virus that could start new pandemics. Nevertheless, other scientists followed up their research and knew how these mutations could spread the flu in the air.
Some studies suggest that viruses are more stable, so they can withstand traveling through the air in the liquid. When another mammal sucks the liquid, the virus can cover the cells of the animal's upper respiratory tract by a specific mutation. In addition, other mutations can make the virus prosperous at the cool temperature of the airway, and can create many new viruses that can be exhaled.
Despite the fact that about 1 billion people have gained seasonal flu every year, it has been found that it is difficult to track influenza among humans. However, some studies have pointed out aerial communication. In 2018, researchers were sick of college students with flu and breathed with square air sunplas. The 39 % of the small droplets they exhaled carried executable influenza virus.
Despite these discoveries, it is still unknown how the flu spreads in the air. Scientists cannot provide accurate values ββon the ratio of influenza cases caused by the aerial diffusion on polluted surface, such as doorknob.
“Very basic knowledge is certainly lacking,” said Dr. Herfst.
During the influenza season last year, Dr. Coleman and her colleagues became ill and sick at the Baltimore hotel. The sick volunteers spent time in the room with a healthy person, played games, and talked together.
Dr. Coleman and her colleagues collected influenza virus floating around the room. However, any non -infected volunteer was sick, so scientists could not compare the frequency of influenza infections in the air, not short -range coughs or virus painted surfaces.
“It's difficult to imitate real life,” said Dr. Coleman.
Dr. Coleman and her colleagues have been trying to fix the spread of influenza, but bird flu is more and more infected in the United States as a whole. Probably by drinking raw milk or eating raw pet food, even cats are infected.
Some influenza experts are concerned that H5N1 has acquired some of the necessary mutations in the air. The virus separated from dairy workers in Texas had a mutation that could speed up duplication on the airway. When Dr. Hursty and his colleagues sprayed aerial droplet to the ferrets, 30 % of animals developed infections.
“Labs around the United States and the world are noticeable to see if these viruses are very dangerous for humans,” said HERFST.
Emoli University's virus, Cima Rakuda Wara, states that it will be impossible to predict when the bird flu viruses are required to spread to humans. I am. However, the virus has been extended RAMP on a farm, and a lot of people are infected, and the probability of aerial evolution is increasing.
“The shocking thing for me is that I am doing this experiment naturally,” said Dr. Rakudawara.
