Flu And Its Evolution

EVOLUTION AND THE AVIAN FLU”

1. What role does evolution play in a potential avian flu pandemic?
Evolution is the change over time in one or more inherited traits, so in this sense, can makethe virus more potential and resistant to the human’s body. As it is getting stronger, it can be transmitted not only by animals to person but also from human to other human. The easier is the way ofinfection, the greater will be the chance of infection in the world causing a potential avian flu pandemic.
2. Why health workers are more concerned about a bird flu epidemic than illness arecaused a normal human flu virus?
Health workers are more concerned about bird flu than in the normal virus because people somehow are immune to the normal flu virus or because this is less lethal incomparison with the one caused by birds. Other reason might be because bird flu can be quickly spread and they need to make sure they are given quality and non-infected products to the population.
3.How could the avian flu change from bird-to-bird strain to a human-to-human strain?
Maybe because humans eat all kind of meat (fish, pork, cow, bird, etc) without knowing or being aware if the meatis really healthy. If the meat contains some viruses, these start to evolve inside the human body, more specifically inside our genomes, making the transition easier for them.
4. Why do virusesevolve quickly?
Viruses can evolve quickly because they have acquired genetic variation in multiple ways, such as random mutation.
5. How are viral evolution and human evolution different?Humans can evolve and create new resistances in their immunity system but the virus present higher mutation and produce a high number of genetic variants when they reproduce.
6. Compare and contrastthe role of natural selection in producing antibiotic resistant bacteria and in producing a pandemic-causing H5N1 viral strain.
Natural selection acts on the variation that exists in a population,...