A mutation in H5 haemagglutinin that conferred human receptor recognition is not maintained stably during duck passage.

A/Hong Kong/213/97 (HK213; H5N1), isolated from a human, binds to both avian- and human-type receptors, due to a haemagglutinin (HA) mutation probably acquired during adaptation to humans. Duck passage of this virus conferred lethality in ducks. Sequence analyses of the duck-passaged virus revealed that its HA gene reverted back to one recognizing only avian-type receptors, and consequently it bound human tissue to a lesser extent. This finding suggests that viruses with human-type receptor specificity are unlikely to be maintained in waterfowl, unlike those with the human-type PB2 mutation, such as H5N1 viruses of the Qinghai Lake lineage.