A pig on a farm in Oregon has contracted bird flu, the first time a pig in the US has been infected with the H5N1 strain. Other animals on the farm are under quarantine to prevent further spread of the virus. Pigs have both birdlike and humanlike receptors, making them susceptible to not only swine-specific flu strains but also to viruses from birds and humans. The risk to people comes from pigs’ long-time standing as flu mixing vessels. If a bird virus and a human virus were to infect the same pig, this provides an opportunity for the viruses to swap genes in a process called reassortment. Pigs are the suspected source of the strain behind the 1918 influenza pandemic and the 2009 swine flu pandemic. The virus is adapting to spread mammal-to-mammal rather than to mammals from wild birds or poultry. Other changes also need to happen for avian flus to break the species barrier and efficiently spread among people.
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