The patient in Louisiana who was hospitalized with severe bird flu illness was found to have a mutated version of the virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced last ...

The avian flu virus isolated from a hospitalized teenager in Vancouver has mutations in key areas that could help the virus spread more easily in humans, scientists say. There is no indication that ...

Helen Branswell covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development. Follow her on Mastodon and Bluesky. You can reach Helen on ...

A genetic analysis sheds light on when the outbreak began, how the virus spread and where it may be going. By Apoorva Mandavilli and Emily Anthes The bird flu virus sweeping across dairy farms in ...

Huge die-offs of elephant seals occurred after the virus gained nearly 20 troublesome new mutations, scientists found. By Apoorva Mandavilli Elephant seals in South America died in massive numbers ...

A 13-year-old girl in British Columbia who was hospitalized with bird flu for several weeks late last year harbored a mutated version of the virus, according to a report published this week in the New ...

A single modification in the protein found on the surface of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 influenza virus currently circulating in U.S. dairy cows could allow for easier ...

A rare genetic mutation appears to make people basically invulnerable to viruses – and it could potentially be harnessed as a therapy. Researchers have now shown this surprising viral protection can ...

The virus that causes COVID-19 is accumulating genetic mutations, one of which may have made it more contagious. The number of virus strains present in each zip code in Houston during the second wave ...

This month’s story comes from the Bloom lab using their signature deep mutational scanning technique to identify mutations in the surface protein of Lassa virus -called glycoprotein- that escape ...

The findings may increase scrutiny about the usefulness of the treatment, molnupiravir, which was one of the first Covid drugs available to doctors worldwide during the pandemic. Molnupiravir works by ...