Dr. Muiris Houston’s latest evolution of bird flu raises serious concerns, and it’s time to ramp up testing and sample sequencing. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently decided that Covid-19 is still a public health issue of international concern. While we wait for signs that it will become a seasonal virus, another, more familiar foe appears to be on the verge of causing the next global pandemic.
A Quick Overview
The bird flu virus, an influenza A virus, first appeared in 1996. It has since decimated poultry and wild bird populations all over the world. However, the H5N1 virus is now infecting mammals. It has evolved into a highly pathogenic virus with a high mortality rate when it jumps to humans.
According to WHO data, there were 868 cases of human H5N1 infection between January 2003 and November 2022, with more than half of them being fatal.
An H5N1 outbreak in a Spanish mink farm last October is cause for concern. It is more likely that it spread from mink to mink than from wild birds to mink due to the animals’ crowded living conditions. Almost over 50,000 minks had to be put down.
Concerns have been raised that humans may be next, and the WHO is urging countries to “increase surveillance in settings where humans and farmed or wild animals interact.”
End Note
When humans become infected with bird flu, they are more likely to develop severe illness. A fatality rate of up to 50% suggests this is the case. However, it is possible that some H5N1-infected people had very mild infections and were never tested, skewing the mortality statistics.
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