Coming soon -- a treatment for bird flu!

In a novel discovery, scientists have identified six potential therapeutics to treat the deadly H7N9 avian influenza.'The seriousness of the disease often results from the strength of immune response, rather than with the virus itself. Turning down that response, rather than attacking the virus, might be a better way to reduce that severity,' explained Juliet Morrison from University of Washington, Seattle.

The viruses that cause severe illness like H7N9 trigger gene expression signatures that are different from the signatures seen in milder infections. 'Importantly, we can exploit these signatures for antiviral drug discovery,' Morrison added. The investigators used a computational approach to identify potentially therapeutic drugs. They searched databases containing gene expression profiles of cultured human cells that had been treated with different drugs. These drugs could potentially dampen the harmful host response. (Read: Potential treatment for drug-resistant H7N9 influenza virus comes closer to reality)

'Six of these drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration and could potentially be repurposed as H7N9 influenza therapeutics,' Morrison said. Computational biology represents an exciting new way to study viruses and to discover drugs to fight them, the study, published online in the Journal of Virology, concluded. The H7N9 avian influenza which emerged in Feb 2013 causes extreme illness, reminiscent of the 1918 influenza pandemic, the deadliest on record. (Read: Have Chinese scientists made a breakthrough against the H7N9 virus?)

What is avian influenza?

Avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, is an infectious viral disease which normally affects wild birds but can sometimes spread to domestic poultry. The flu doesn't normally affect humans except for the H5N1 strain. A new strain H7N9 has been identified which seems to be highly fatal and kills victims within three weeks. Bird flu cannot spread from one human to another like swine flu. But according to researchers, if the strains affecting humans mutates and starts spreading between humans it could cause a large scale pandemic.

Avian influenza can only spread from infected birds to humans by coming in close contact with them. It can spread from the bird's skin, excreta and blood. Also eating, uncooked or under-cooked birds infected with the virus could cause bird flu. If a farm-raised bird gets affected it must be immediately culled to stop the virus from spreading. The virus cannot spread from one human to another like swine flu.

Some of the typical symptoms are fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches. More severe symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, eye infections and could ultimately lead to pneumonia and respiratory failure. The most commonly used medicine to treat H5N1 in humans is Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), an anti-viral that prevents the spread of flu in the body. There is no publicly-available vaccine against H5N1 yet. Read more about Bird Flu should you be worried?

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