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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/18/risk-bird-flu-spreading-humans-enormous-concern-who>
"The World Health Organization has raised concerns about the spread of H5N1
bird flu, which has an “extraordinarily high” mortality rate in humans.
An outbreak that began in 2020 has led to the deaths or killing of tens of
millions of poultry. Most recently, the spread of the virus within several
mammal species, including in domestic cattle in the US, has increased the risk
of spillover to humans, the WHO said.
“This remains I think an enormous concern,” the UN health agency’s chief
scientist, Jeremy Farrar, told reporters in Geneva.
Cows and goats joined the list of species affected last month – a surprising
development for experts because they were not thought susceptible to this type
of influenza. US authorities reported this month that a person in Texas was
recovering from bird flu after being exposed to dairy cattle, with 16 herds
across six states infected apparently after exposure to wild birds.
The A(H5N1) variant has become “a global zoonotic animal pandemic”, Farrar
said.
“The great concern of course is that in ... infecting ducks and chickens and
then increasingly mammals, that virus now evolves and develops the ability to
infect humans and then critically the ability to go from human to human,” he
added.
So far, there is no evidence that H5N1 is spreading between humans. But in the
hundreds of cases where humans have been infected through contact with animals
over the past 20 years, “the mortality rate is extraordinarily high”, Farrar
said, because humans have no natural immunity to the virus."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
