They identified which amino acids are most likely to
mutate.
Q: How would scientists fight the virus if it were to
mutate and become easily contagious among humans?
Because the virus continues to
mutate, it poses a new threat each year.
Every time it enters a human being, it is given a new opportunity to
mutateIf and when the H5N1 virus
mutates into a strain that retains its lethal effects and becomes highly transmissible from human to human, the clock will start ticking, and the race against time to control the pandemic will begin.
However, he continued, a global pandemic "could become a reality if this virus
mutates further, remains highly virulent, and acquires the capability to spread as efficiently from person to person as do the commonly circulating virus strains that produce seasonal influenza epidemics."
Experts are no longer talking of wiping out the disease, but of containing it before it
mutates.
Experts do not think it will return to infect humans unless there is an unlucky escape from a laboratory or the virus
mutates into an entirely new form.