Scientists Track Avian Flu Variant Across Egypt

An avian flu variant - H5N1 - has claimed the lives of tens of millions of birds and is capable of infecting humans, causing serious illness and frightening mortality rates.

In a study, Matthew Scotch, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, tracked the spread of an H5N1 variant in Egypt. The country has been identified as a major epicenter for the virus. Scotch tracked the spread of H5N1 cases using a technique known as phylogeography. The results recently appeared in the journal BMC Genomics.

The authors intend this study to spur public health efforts to identify viral outbreaks, limiting their spread and coordinating vaccination efforts in order to curb mortality.

"Egypt represents an epicenter for H5N1 and there are new variants that have emerged since it was first discovered there in 2006," Scotch said. "We used phylogeography and influenza genome sequences to model diffusion and evolution of the virus."

Phylogeography combines viral sequence data and geographical information, allowing researchers to better understand how viruses spread through animal and human populations. The field has already helped establish a powerful technique for investigating viral dispersal for human diseases, "including dengue fever, rabies, influenza and HIV. Recent application of phylogeographic methods to the study of avian influenza promises to significantly improve fine-grained mapping of viral origin and spread."

The group's findings revealed the spread of H5N1 across Egypt's four primary areas: Cairo, Nile Delta, Canal and Upper Egypt. "Statistical analysis suggests the northern governorate of Ash Sharqiyah as the point of origin for the spread of H5N1, however, the mathematical association is too weak to claim certainty. Analysis also implied that the strongest transmission routes for H5N1 were from Ash Sharqiyah to Al Gharbiyah and Al Fayyum to Al Qalyubiyah," according to the study.

Most of the identified routes of transmission appeared in the densely populated Delta region of Egypt. The Al Qalybiyah governate in particular appears to be a popular area for viral transition, though dispersion to and from this region remains uncertain, requiring further research, according to the press release.

"This has significant public health implications for the rest of the world," Scotch said. "It is important to focus on variant clades in order to better understand how this virus has evolved and which governorates are propograting its spread."