Bird flu is a real pandemic threat. Are we prepared for the worst?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/16/bird-flu-pandemic-threat-prepared
Dr. Devi Sridhar:
Avian flu has caused concerns recently given several step-changes in the seriousness of the potential threat: becoming endemic in wild bird populations; then its spread among domestic birds, causing a turkey lockdown in winter 2022; then reports from across the world about infections in mammals such as sea lions that feed on or live near wild birds. In the past year, a big shift has been the confirmation of mammal-to-mammal transmission among dairy cows in the US.
The growing proximity of the virus to humans has resulted in an increasing number of infections in humans in the past year (bird-to-human or cow-to-human), but H5N1 can still not transmit human-to-human the way Sars-Cov-2 or seasonal influenza can, which is why it’s considered low-risk. However, a recent Science article noted that the strain in cows would only require a single mutation to enable the virus to move from avian to human specificity. This is the shift that would trigger governments to activate their pandemic preparedness and response plans and would make it leap to the top of risk registers.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/16/bird-flu-pandemic-threat-prepared
Dr. Devi Sridhar:
Avian flu has caused concerns recently given several step-changes in the seriousness of the potential threat: becoming endemic in wild bird populations; then its spread among domestic birds, causing a turkey lockdown in winter 2022; then reports from across the world about infections in mammals such as sea lions that feed on or live near wild birds. In the past year, a big shift has been the confirmation of mammal-to-mammal transmission among dairy cows in the US.
The growing proximity of the virus to humans has resulted in an increasing number of infections in humans in the past year (bird-to-human or cow-to-human), but H5N1 can still not transmit human-to-human the way Sars-Cov-2 or seasonal influenza can, which is why it’s considered low-risk. However, a recent Science article noted that the strain in cows would only require a single mutation to enable the virus to move from avian to human specificity. This is the shift that would trigger governments to activate their pandemic preparedness and response plans and would make it leap to the top of risk registers.