Author: Tina Hesman Saey / Source: Science News for Students
Some dogs in China carry a mix of flu viruses, including viruses from pigs.
The finding raises the possibility that dogs could pass the flu to people. This might set off a worldwide disease outbreak.Just like people, some animals can get the flu. Different influenza viruses infect different kinds of animals, such as pigs and birds. Animals don’t all get the runny nose, fever and muscle aches that people do. Sometimes these viruses exist peacefully in the animals without making them sick. Other times, the infection can be deadly. Chickens and turkeys with the flu may have mild symptoms, such as ruffled feathers or a drop in egg laying. Some flu viruses may kill poultry by attacking the birds’ internal organs.
When animals get the flu, people’s biggest worry is that the rapidly changing viruses may jump from animals to humans. So scientists keep a close eye on these viruses. When people catch a new type of flu from animals or birds, it can be very bad. People’s immune systems may not be able to fight the new flu virus very well. If that happens, a person could get very sick and even die. And the new flu may spread around the world in what is called a pandemic.
Sneaky swine viruses
Dogs can get the flu, too. In the new study, researchers swabbed the noses of 800 dogs from 2013 to 2015.
The dogs came from a part of southern China called the Guangxi region. All the dogs were sick with symptoms such as runny noses or coughs. And 116 of them were infected with flu viruses.To the scientists’ surprise, some of the flu viruses in those dogs had originally come from pigs. (In the code that scientists use to describe different types of flu, these were H1N1 viruses.) The researchers studied the genes of 16 of the samples. They discovered that some of these swine flu viruses were types that had previously infected people and…
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