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Why is the avian flu virus in the news called H5N1?

April 26, 2017avian flu called H5N1 News virus

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Why is the avian flu virus in the news called H5N1?

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Flu viruses are named according to two different proteins on their surface: hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Hemagglutinin helps the virus stick to cells and infect them. After invading cells, the virus replicates into many identical copies. Neuraminidase enables these new copies to exit the host cell. Currently, there are 16 known variants of hemagglutinin and 9 known variants of neuraminidase. The avian flu currently under international scrutiny has hemagglutinin type 5 and neuraminidase type 1 (H5N1).