Do
any of you remember the H1N1 (also commonly referred to as the swine flu) virus pandemic in 2009? That same virus that
infected millions of people world-wide has been found infecting sea otters. In
2011, researchers in Washington found that the sea otters there were infected
with this virus, but they didn’t know how they got infected. In fact, these
otters rarely came into contact with humans. Looking back at it, researchers
still don’t know how the sea otters got infected. However, these aren’t the
only animals that have been infected. Ducks, chickens, pigs, whales, horses and
elephant seals have all been identified to carry the H1N1 virus. So what does
this mean for other animals? What does this mean for us?
The
H1N1 virus is still affecting us to this day and was in fact in circulation
during the 2013-2014 flu season. We know that we can transmit this flu among
one another, but with animals to? Chickens, pigs, horses and ducks are commonly
around people, so it makes a little more sense that they would contract the
virus. However, these sea otters almost have no contact with humans. In fact, a
good population of the marine world doesn’t have direct contact with humans. So
how could this virus be spreading? The author does not make it clear how these
animals are contracting the virus and what it means for them. If a horse can
get the virus, then shouldn’t cats and dogs be able to as well? As researchers
discover more animals contracting this virus, will they find a pandemic forming
within the animal community? I think it’s important that researchers really
look into this and discover the reason for this virus in animals, particularly
ones in solitude like the sea otters, so they can figure out if it’s going to
become a problem or not.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140408213619.htm
The H1N1 influenza outbreak was a big deal and caused widespread panic all throughout the world. But I thought it was only able to infect humans, but now that they have discovered it infecting animals makes it much more of an issue, because if it transferred to animals then it has the ability to mutate and become a much more dangerous virus. Also the thing with the flu vaccine is that it can only be used during one season because the virus mutates so quickly that by next flu season it has mutated and the vaccine wont work. Keeping that in mind it makes this much more scary, what if it mutates within the sea otters then transfers to humans and it causes a much worse outbreak than the H1N1 outbreak and causes a lot of deaths worldwide. And I agree with you that they should research it more to see if it is a problem or not.
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