A variant of H5N1 that carried mammal-adapted mutations was found in a subset of harbor and gray seals that died amid an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild gulls and eiders in New England, researchers reported in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases. The mutated form of the virus does not appear to have persisted, says co-author Kaitlin Sawatzki, a postdoctoral researcher at Tufts University’s School of Veterinary Medicine, and researchers don’t know whether it was transmitted from bird to seal or from seal to seal, says co-author Wendy Puryear, a virologist at the veterinary school.
