Category: Flu Virus

Geneva

In the wake of a recent outbreak of avian influenza detected in dairy cows and goats in the United States, the World Health Organization is calling on governments to increase their surveillance and to remain vigilant regarding the possible spread of this deadly disease to their countries.

Dr. Wenqing Zhang, head of the WHOs global influenza program, said Friday that investigations are underway to determine the extent and severity of the H5N1 bird flu found in 29 herds in eight U.S. states since March.

While WHO and its partners are closely monitoring, reviewing, assessing and updating the risk associated with H5N1 and other avian influenza viruses, we call on countries to remain vigilant, rapidly report human infections if any, rapidly share sequences and other data, and reinforce biosecurity measures on animal farms, said Zhang.

Zhang also told journalists in Geneva that on April 1 a laboratory-confirmed case of avian influenza was found in a man who was working at a dairy cattle farm in Texas.

The case in Texas is the first case of a human infected by avian influenza by a cow, she said, noting that he most likely got infected through the direct contact with cows.

Now we see multiple herds of cows affected in an increasing number of U.S. states, which shows a further step of the virus spillover to mammals, she added, warning that farm workers and others in close contact with cows should take precautions in case the animals are infected.

Zhang also noted that so far there has been no detected transmission of the virus from cattle to other mammals, though bird-to-cow, cow-to-cow and cow-to-bird transmission have occurred during the current outbreaks.

Although a lot is still under investigation, this suggests that the virus may have found ... routes of transmission other than what we previously understood, she said. While this sounds concerning, it is also a testament to strong disease surveillance which allows us to detect the virus.

FILE - Researchers collect samples of wildlife, where the H5N1 bird flu virus was detected, at Chilean Antarctic Territory, Antarctica, in this handout photo obtained March 13, 2024. (Instituto Antartico Chileno/Handout via Reuters)

Avian influenza A(H5N1) first emerged in 1996. In 2020, the virus spread into Africa, Asia, and Europe and then in 2022, it crossed into North and South America.

In recent years, we see the virus spillover to mammals, Zhang said, noting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has detected infections in around 200 mammals.

Human infections of avian flu are rare and tied to exposure to infected animals and environments. The WHO reports nearly 900 cases have been detected since 2003. About half of those infected with the disease reportedly have died.

In the early years, most cases were found in Asia and Southeast Asia. WHO reports the relatively few U.S. and European cases reported to the agency over the past two years have been mild.

Zhang said the virus in dairy cows currently circulating in the United States also has been detected in milk from infected animals.

We also received reports that there is very high virus concentration in raw milks. But exactly how long the virus will be able to survive in the milks remains under investigation.

So, we recommend that people really should consume pasteurized milk and milk products, she said, adding that this recommendation applies to people in the whole world.

Nearly 20 vaccines are currently licensed for pandemic use for influenza. Zhang said two candidate vaccine viruses are available that can respond to bird flu outbreaks in dairy cows and other animals in the United States.

Having candidate vaccine viruses really allows us to be prepared to quickly produce vaccines for humans, if this becomes necessary, she said, adding that at least four antiviral medications, including oseltamivir, widely marketed as Tamiflu, are available to treat people who may become sick with bird flu.

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WHO urges heightened vigilance on potential spread of bird flu in cows - Voice of America - VOA News

Loren Brey, a poultry grower in Minnesota, walked onto the farm where his egg-laying turkeys nest in November to discover a handful of hens, dead from the highly pathogenic avian flu.

Within a week, he lost nearly half of his entire flock.

So when Mr. Breys turkeys began producing eggs again in the spring, he gave a seemingly unconventional prevention method a go: lasers installed atop his barns, firing beams of green light to fend off wild ducks, owls and other possible carriers of the deadly virus.

As migratory birds fly north for the spring, poultry farmers and backyard keepers across the country are bracing for yet another outbreak of avian flu. Although the most recent strain has felled only a small portion of the nearly 10 billion chickens, turkeys, ducks and other birds sold across the country each year, some poultry growers like Mr. Brey are turning to innovative tactics to protect their flocks, deploying deterrents like drones, air horns, balloons and decoy predators.

The practices underline the scramble by smaller farms and even some larger-scale operations to ward off the virus, as well as the fatigue, and begrudging acceptance, of the illness after years of sanitation protocols, lockdowns and debates over vaccination.

The most affected appear to be large-scale industrial farms and those raising egg-producing chickens: two-thirds of the depopulated birds belong to just 30 farms with one million or more egg-laying hens. Turkey operations, like Mr. Breys, have also been hit hard, representing 350 of the 481 commercial farms with detected cases. The birds are particularly susceptible to infection, and are more exposed to the virus because many turkey farms sit within the migratory path for many wild waterfowl, said Dr. Carol Cardona, an expert in avian health at the University of Minnesota.

An infection carries vast consequences.

Under federal policy, one infected bird can necessitate the culling or elimination of an entire flock, and then disposing of the carcasses through composting, burial, incineration or rendering. The regulation has resulted in 90 million dead birds and more than 1,100 affected flocks across the country since February 2022, when the strain, the most lethal yet in the United States, was first detected.

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Lasers, Inflatable Dancers and the Fight to Fend Off Avian Flu - The New York Times

The World Health Organization warned on Thursday that the ongoing spread of the bird flu among both birds and mammals around the world is a "significant public health concern."

The H5N1 subvariant of bird flu has been increasingly reported in cattle in recent weeks, with 32 cases reported in eight states since March 25.

Earlier this month, a person who had exposure to infected cows in Texas was found to be infected with the H5N1 subtype, with conjunctivitis being their only symptom. The infected person was treated with a flu antiviral drug and recovered.

Dr. Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the WHO, explained on Thursday that the great concern is that as the bird flu has spread around the world in both birds and mammals in the past two years, it could eventually evolve and develop the ability to infect humans and eventually the ability to pass between humans.

Do the milking structures of cows create aerosols? Is it the environment which theyre living in? Is it the transport system that is spreading this around the country?" said Farrar. "This is a huge concern and I think we have tomake sure that if H5N1 did come across to humans with human-to-human transmission that we were in a position to immediately respond with access equitably to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

Farrar expressed concerns that vaccine development for the bird flu was "not where we need to be."

The WHO scientist added that the virus "is just looking for new, novel hosts" and that its spread among mammals brings it closer to humans, according to The Guardian. Farrar called for increased monitoring, stressing that it's important to understand how many human infections are happening in order to keep track of potential adaptations by the virus.

The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) updated on Tuesday that while wild migratory birds are believed to be the original source of the outbreaks among cattle, there is evidence of some cases where it appears the virus spread between cows and from cows back to birds.

Analyses of viruses found in the cows have so far not found any changes affiliated with transmission between people. The USDA added that it remains unclear exactly how the virus is spreading between cows, although respiratory-related samples did not include significant concentrations of the virus, indicating that respiratory transmission is likely not the main way it's being spread.

The WHO reported on Friday that the bird flu had been detected in very high concentrations in raw milk from infected animals, although it remains unclear how long the virus can survive in milk.

Wenqing Zhang, head of the global influenza program at the WHO, told reporters that the fact the virus was now spreading from cows to humans, between cows, and between cows and birds suggests that "the virus may have found other routes of transition than we previously understood."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated on Friday that tests had found that the H5N1 virus that infected a person in Texas earlier this month could be treated with antiviral medications used for seasonal flu.

Additionally, some preliminary analyses have shown that two candidate vaccines for the bird flu could offer protection against the virus found in the infected person.

The CDC added that this is a "rapidly changing, emerging situation," but stressed that it still believes that the risk to humans is low.

Health officials from the CDC and the WHO have stressed the importance of not consuming raw milk. Pasteurization should kill any bird flu viruses present in dairy products.

Some scientists have expressed concerns that US officials are not being transparent or clear enough about the outbreaks of bird flu.

Marion Koopmans, head of the department of viroscience at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, told STAT news that studying the spread of the virus in cattle has been difficult for scientists not in the US due to a lack of information being released by the US.

Koopmans stressed that health officials need to figure out if the outbreak among cattle and other related mammals is unique to the US or is a risk around the world.

Only a few genetic sequences from the outbreak have been uploaded to international databases, all of which are from early in the outbreak, making it difficult for scientists to monitor if the virus has changed as it spread further.

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesotas Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told STAT that the behavior of US officials concerning the outbreak has created "the perception that something is happening or not happening that would not meet with the publics approval."

STAT also noted that the belief that pasteurization would kill bird flu viruses was based on work done on other viruses, not H5N1. When they asked the USDA and FDA if they were testing to see if the process also killed H5N1, they were told work on the matter had not yet been done.

The New York Times reported on Friday that officials in North Carolina found bird flu infections in a cattle herd with no symptoms, information the USDA has not shared publicly. The fact that cattle herds may be infected without expressing symptoms could mean that the outbreak is more widespread than previously thought.

The Times also noted that federal officials have shared only limited genetic information with scientists and officials in other countries. Federal officials are also not actively monitoring infections in pigs, which are considered to be central to evolving flu viruses and are often kept close to cattle.

Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Times that if more information was shared, scientists outside the government could help contain the virus already.

Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, noted that widespread testing of animals with and without symptoms is important in order to understand the scale of outbreaks and how they're spreading. The USDA is not requiring widespread testing at this point.

Dr. Amy Swinford, director of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, noted that some dairy farmers are afraid to test their herds due to concerns that fears about bird flu could hurt their business.

"I think theres many more dairies that have had this going on than what weve gotten samples from," Swinford told the Times.

The USDA has stressed that it has been "timely and transparent" about the release of information, according to STAT.

Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the USDAs chief veterinarian, stressed in an interview to the Times that over a dozen federal epidemiologists, and many laboratory employees, field staff members, and academic and state collaborators were working on monitoring the virus. Sifford noted that the agency has been engaged with the issue for less than a month and is working hard to generate more information."

Outbreaks of avian influenza have been increasingly reported in mammals as the virus has continued to spread around the world in the past few years.

Since 2021, Europe and the Americas have been suffering from a nearly continuous outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza, which has been described as "the largest-ever" on the three continents. The virus has affected tens of millions of birds and thousands of mammals worldwide. Outbreaks of the virus have also become more common in Africa and Asia in the past year and have even spread to Antarctica in recent months.

The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) noted in March that, while estimates vary, about 485 bird species and 37 mammal species have been infected with avian influenza since 2021. Only the Pacific Islands, Australia, and New Zealand have been spared from the virus.

The loss of wildlife at the current scale presents an unprecedented risk of wildlife population collapse, creating an ecological crisis, noted WOAH.

Original post:

Bird flu continues to spread between cows, WHO concerned - The Jerusalem Post

Tanya Lewis: Hi, this is Your Health, Quickly, a Scientific American podcast series.

Josh Fischman: We bring you the latest vital health news: discoveries that affect your body and your mind.

Lewis: And we break down the medical research to help you stay healthy. Im Tanya Lewis.

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Fischman: Im Josh Fischman.

Lewis: Were Scientific Americans senior health editors.

Fischman: Today, were talking about flu. But not just any flu. This is avian influenza, or bird flu. Its been sickening wild birds and mammals around the world, and it has infected people. Now its spreading among U.S. cows. But how big a threat is it to humans?

[CLIP: Show theme music]

Lewis: Bird flu may sound like an innocuous disease that gives sparrows the sniffles. But its actually quite a serious pathogen that infects farmed birds like chickens and many species of wild birds.

Fischman: It can also infect other animals, and humans too. And sometimes, it can be deadly.

Lewis: There are a couple of different kinds of bird flu. The one scientists are watching carefully right now is called highly pathogenic avian influenza A, or H5N1. In several bird flu outbreaks, the virus has spilled over into people who had close contact with the birds. Its had a very high mortality rate in those people.

Fischman: By high, that can mean around 50 percent. There was an H5N1 outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 that sickened 18 people, six of whom died. It later infected more than 800 people, and more than half of those folks died.

Lewis: Yikes.

Fischman: Yeah, scary. The virus appeared again in China and several other countries in 2003. Another form of the virus caused deadly outbreaks around 2015 in Egypt and several countries in Asia.

Lewis: Yeah, it was pretty serious. This latest version of the virus is called H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b. It started circulating around 2021 and soon spread throughout domestic and wild birds around the world, killing hundreds of millions of them.

Christine Kreuder Johnson: We've been watching this avian influenza H5N1 sublineage for a while, because it has had many unprecedented tactics that we haven't really seen before.

Lewis: Thats Christine Kreuder Johnson, professor of epidemiology and ecosystem health and director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the University of California, Davis.

Christine tracks zoonotic pathogensthat is, viruses or other infections that can jump between wild or domestic animals and humans. She was part of a pandemic warning project called PREDICT, funded by the United States Agency for International Development. The Trump administration shut that project down in March of 2020.

Christine is a big advocate for One Health, an approach to understanding disease outbreaks that considers how the health of people, animals and the environment are connected.

Kreuder Johnson: The epidemic trajectory in Latin America even further emphasized how unusual this virus strain is, in terms of its epidemiology.

Lewis: Suddenly you had unprecedented cases of bird flu in marine mammals, including seals and sea lions.

Kreuder Johnson: That really, for those of us who work in the wildlife health realm, was a major signal that this virus is continuing to change and further evolve.

Fischman: Because of that ongoing evolution, H5N1 has made leaps into a wide variety of mammal species, including not just marine mammals, but land-based ones like foxes and bears and cats and dogs.

Most recently, H5N1 has been detected in nearly 30 cattle herds, spread across eight states. Those states are: Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Michigan, Idaho, South Dakota, North Carolina and Ohio.

Lewis: In early April, H5N1 was reported in a person in the U.S.a dairy worker who likely had contact with infected cows. That persons only symptom was eye redness and inflammation, or conjunctivitis, so not a full-blown respiratory infection, and they seem to have recovered fully.

It was only the second time a person in the U.S. has been infected with this virusthe first was in 2022 in Colorado, in someone who had had contact with infected poultry.

Fischman: So in both of those cases, the person was infected by direct, close contact with an animal, right?

Lewis: Thats rightit doesnt appear to spread easily between people. But that doesnt mean we should be nonchalant about it. Its definitely worrisome that its infecting so many mammalsincluding cows.

Fischman: Cows make milk, which we drink. Is there a risk of people getting sick from milk from infected cows?

Lewis: Its possible, but unlikely if the milk has been pasteurized. We dont really know if it can be transmitted via raw milk, but you should always drink pasteurized milk in general, because that kills harmful pathogens (including bird flu, experts think).

Fischman: Raw milk is actually banned by the FDA. I mean big brands, sold nationally. But you can find some at farmers markets or other local stores. Thats where Id be careful.

Before I start panicking about another killer virus, at this moment, Tanya, how big of a danger is bird flu to humans?

Lewis: Well, the CDC and World Health Organization both say that the threat to humans remains low, for now.

I talked to Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, to get his take. Hes been involved in assessing potential pandemic pathogen risk for decades.

Michael Osterholm: The risk assessment from both WHO and CDC remains low-risk for humans with this virus, and I support that. If you look at the cases that have occurred since 1997, when it really first emerged in human cases Hong Kong, through to mid-2015 to 2016, those years were by far the highest-risk situation. Weve seen very few cases in humans since then.

Fischman: Thats interesting. But couldnt the virus easily mutate into something more worrisome? Thats what Christine was saying earlier. Thats how the virus that causes COVID got going. If this one did get going, how would we know when to worry?

Lewis: Thats a great point. Yes, the biggest concern with avian flu is that it could mutate to start infecting humans more easily. But historically, most of the cases in humans have come from close contact with infected animals, not from human-to-human transmission.

That said, the more this virus spreads in animals, the more opportunities it has to evolve into something thats more efficient at infecting humans.

Osterholm: The virus has changedits mutated to the point of where it is infecting other mammal species and birds at an increasing rate. But weve had no evidence yet that thats happened for humans or for pigs. And pigs would be the animal species that, to me, would be the sentinel that Id be most concerned about.

Fischman: Why are pigs such a big deal?

Lewis: Well, pigs can harbor both swine and human viruses. In the animals, the viruses can swap components, and a pig virus can gain features that make it easier to infect people.

Fischman: Okay, got it. So, if H5N1 starts showing up in pigs, we should be a little worried.

Lewis: Yeah, thats definitely something scientists will be on the lookout for. The viral sequence from the recent human case did have a mutation that allows it to spread more efficiently in mammals, but it lacked a key mutation that would enable it to infect the human respiratory tract more easily.

If the virus does evolve to spread more easily from person to person, we do at least have vaccines and antiviral medication for flu. Its not clear how protective the seasonal flu vaccine would be, but there is a small amount of H5N1 vaccine stockpiled.

Fischman: I guess that helps me sleep a little easier. But just a little. Because I wonder: if bird fluor any other viruswere to cause another pandemic, are we better prepared for it now than we were when COVID hit?

Kreuder Johnson: That is the billion-dollar question, right? In some ways we are and in some ways we aren't. I think we still have a lot of growth to do in terms of how we can prepare and head off things. But I'm really, as always, impressed by our colleagues in the government who work incredibly hard to keep an eye on these things.

Lewis: It all comes back to the idea of One Healthwe need to monitor not just the health of humans, but also that of other animals and the environment. Bird flu may not be an immediate threat to humans now, but we shouldnt get too complacent.

Osterholm: At this point, again, the virus, as it is, I don't believe poses a major risk to humans. But that could change overnight.

[CLIP: Show music]

Fischman: Your Health, Quickly is produced by Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg, Jeff DelViscio, and by us. Its edited by Elah Feder and Alexa Lim. Our music is composed by Dominic Smith.

Lewis: Our show is part of Scientific Americans podcast, Science, Quickly. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, give us a rating or a review!

And if you have a topic you want us to cover, you can email us at yourhealthquickly@sciam.com. Thats your health quickly at S-C-I-A-M dot com.

For Your Health, Quickly, Im Tanya Lewis.

Fischman: And,Im Josh Fischman.

Lewis: See you next time.

Link:

How Big a Threat Is Bird Flu? - Scientific American

According to the CDC, human infections with bird flu viruses can happen when virus gets into a persons eyes, nose or mouth, or is inhaled. This can happen when virus is in the air (in droplets or possibly dust) and a person breathes it in, or possibly when a person touches something that has virus on it and then touches their mouth, eyes or nose.

PostedApril 19, 2024 8:53pm EDT

More here:

Bird flu virus of "great concern to WHO - LiveNOW from FOX

NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday announced that the H5N1 bird flu virus strain had been found in significant quantities in raw milk from infected animals, though the duration of the virus's survival in milk remains unknown. Earlier in 1996, Avian influenza A(H5N1) initially surfaced, but since 2020, there has been a remarkable surge in outbreaks among birds, with an increasing number of mammals also falling victim to the disease. This has resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of poultry, along with infections in wild birds, as well as land and marine mammals. Last month, cows and goats were added to the list of affected animals, surprising experts who previously didn't consider them susceptible to this strain of influenza. The outbreak of bird flu in cow has affected at least 13 herds in six states, as per the New York Times. The reports of sick cows began to emerge in Texas and New Mexico. Dead birds were also found on some of these farms, and laboratory testing confirmed that some cows were infected with bird flu. Earlier this month, US authorities reported a case of a person recovering from bird flu after exposure to infected cattle on a Texas dairy farm. "The case in Texas is the first case of a human infected by avian influenza by a cow," said Wenqing Zhang, head of the global influenza programme at the World Health Organization. "Bird-to-cow, cow-to-cow and cow-to-bird transmission have also been registered during these current outbreaks, which suggest that the virus may have found other routes of transition than we previously understood," she told a media briefing in Geneva.

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H5N1 bird flu strain detected in milk: WHO - The Times of India

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Written By Ankit Kumar | Updated : April 22, 2024 1:02 PM IST

In a significant announcement on Saturday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) disclosed the discovery of the H5N1 bird flu virus strain in substantial quantities in raw milk obtained from infected animals. While the duration of the virus's survival in milk remains undetermined, this finding sheds light on the evolving nature of Avian influenza outbreaks. However, Health officials have emphasized that pasteurized milk, readily available in supermarkets, remains safe for consumption as it undergoes a process that eliminates harmful bacteria. H5N1 initially surfaced in 1996 and has since escalated dramatically. The surge in bird flu outbreaks since 2020 has resulted in the deaths of millions of wild birds and poultry worldwide. Alarmingly, the virus has begun infecting various mammals, including humans, cats, bears, foxes, mink, and even penguins. However, flu in cow milk are closely monitored and subject to further research.

This flu strain is also causing worry in India, notably in Kerala's Alappuzha district, where it's been identified in ducks. Authorities are on alert for the future spread of this deadly disease. The findings challenge what we knew about its spread. Wenqing Zhang, a member of the World Health Organization shared this during a press briefing in Geneva and said, "The case in Texas is the first case of a human infected by avian influenza by a cow,".

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The Animal Husbandry Department in Kerala is taking essential steps to control the spread of bird flu. They're upgrading labs, setting up diagnostic facilities, and using rapid tests in the field. It's advised to drink pasteurised milk from stores to avoid harmful bacteria. Bird flu, which affects birds, humans, and other animals, can be dangerous and spread quickly.

In Texas, a person caught bird flu from a cow, the first known case. The virus spread from birds to cows and between cows, showing new ways it can transmit.

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H5N1 flu, also known as avian influenza A (H5N1), is a virus that mostly affects birds but can also infect humans and other animals. It causes serious respiratory illness and can be fatal for humans.

Now the question is if the virus can infect a person who is consuming an infected animal's milk. As per experts, - Yes! The virus spreads through close contact with infected birds or animals or their droppings like excretion, saliva or snot. If any of those gets into the milk supply, there's a risk of transmission. But pasteurisation of milk, where milk is boiled to high temperatures, kills viruses like H5N1. So, properly pasteurised milk is safe to drink, even if there are worries about the virus in the milk supply chain.

H5N1 flu symptoms are like regular flu, cough, diarrhoea, breathing issues, fever, headache, body pain, tiredness, runny nose, and throat pain. You can find it from touching infected bird poop, snot, or saliva. H5N1 started in birds but can also infect people, first found in Hong Kong in 1997. It spreads from wild birds to farm birds, but eating well-cooked poultry or eggs is safe. Health experts advise drinking pasteurised milk to stay safe from bird flu.

The FDA and USDA say our milk supply is safe because of pasteurisation and measures to remove milk from sick cows. They heavily rely on a system and process that has worked well for years against various threats. Studies suggest pasteurisation kills viruses in milk, including the one causing concern at the moment. They're also studying milk production closely to confirm safety. The government is prorating these studies to keep milk safe and will share findings soon.

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WHO Confirms Presence of H5N1 Bird Flu in Raw Milk For The First Time Urges People To Drink Pasteurized M - TheHealthSite

Sounding the alarm for a potential future crisis, scientists warn that the next pandemic might be caused by Disease X. Influenza, a familiar foe associated with seasonal illness, has emerged as a possible threat for this unpredictable and potentially devastating role. An international survey, to be published next weekend, will reveal that 57% of senior disease experts now believe a strain of influenza virus is the most likely cause of the next global outbreak of deadly infectious illness.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that seasonal flu isn't just a winter nuisance. Every year, flu affects an estimated 1 billion people worldwide, with millions more suffering from severe complications. Even worse, it claims hundreds of thousands of lives annually. The WHO emphasises the dangers of new flu strains, for which people have no immunity, urging us to take influenza seriously.

Also read: Haunting last words of the man who self-immolated during Trump's NYC trial: Rotten truth of post-truth America

Cologne University's Jon Salmanton-Garca's research backs up this concern. His research indicates that influenza is the biggest threat to the upcoming worldwide pandemic because of its continual evolution and mutation properties. Each winter influenza appears, you could describe these outbreaks as little pandemics. They are more or less controlled because the different strains that cause them are not virulent enough but that will not necessarily be the case forever. He said as cited by the Guardian.

The survey results will be announced at the ESCMID congress next weekend. The unidentified DiseaseX virus is seen as the next most likely pandemic-causing virus, after influenza, according to experts. Experts believe a new strain of this virus could emerge out of the blue just like Covid-19, which claimed the lives of millions across the globe and still remains a threat.

Also read: 100 times worse than Covid pandemic: Experts on risk of H5N1 bird flu outbreak

These concerning details come on the heels of the World Health Organization raising concerns about the alarming spread of the H5N1 strain of influenza spreading rapidly in parts of the US. The organisation has warned of an unprecedented surge in the number of cases.

This appears to be 100 times worse than Covid, or it could be if it mutates and maintains its high case fatality rate. Once its mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops. John Fulton a pharmaceutical company consultant, said in a statement earlier.

According to WHO records, the data highlights that since 2003, 52 out of every 100 patients infected with the H5N1 virus have died, resulting in a fatality rate exceeding 50 percent. This rate is comparatively much higher than the current COVID-19 fatality rate, which stands at 0.1 percent.

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Disease X: Scientists warn next pandemic could be triggered by virus of deadly infectious illness' - Hindustan Times

CORRECTS 9th para reference to the start of period covered by the human bird flu case statistic to 2003, instead of 2023 as written by mistake. Here is a corrected repetition

The World Health Organization voiced alarm Thursday at the growing spread of H5N1 bird flu to new species, including humans, who face an "extraordinarily high" mortality rate.

"This remains I think an enormous concern," the UN health agency's chief scientist Jeremy Farrar told reporters in Geneva.

The current bird flu outbreak began in 2020 and has led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry, with wild birds also infected as well as land and marine mammals.

Cows and goats joined the list last month -- a surprising development for experts because they were not thought susceptible to this type of influenza.

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The A (H5N1) strain 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."

So far, there is no evidence that the influenza A(H5N1) virus is spreading between humans.

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But in the hundreds of cases where humans have been infected through contact with animals, "the mortality rate is extraordinarily high", Farrar said.

From 2003 to April 1 this year, the WHO said it had recorded 463 deaths from 889 human cases across 23 countries, putting the case fatality rate at 52 percent.

In a worrying development, US authorities earlier this month said a person in Texas was recovering from bird flu after being exposed to dairy cattle.

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It was only the second case of a human testing positive for bird flu in the country, and came after the virus sickened herds that were apparently exposed to wild birds in Texas, Kansas and other states.

It also appears to have been the first human infection with the influenza A(H5N1) virus strain through contact with an infected mammal, WHO said.

When "you come into the mammalian population, then you're getting closer to humans," Farrar said, warning that "this virus is just looking for new, novel hosts".

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"It's a real concern."

Farrar called for beefing up monitoring, insisting it was "very importantunderstanding how many human infections are happening... because that's where adaptation (of the virus) will happen".

"It's a tragic thing to say, but if I get infected with H5N1 and I die, that's the end of it. If I go around the community and I spread it to somebody else then you start the cycle."

He said efforts were under way towards the development of vaccines and therapeutics for H5N1, and stressed the need to ensure that regional and national health authorities around the world have the capacity to diagnose the virus.

This was being done so that "if H5N1 did come across to humans, with human-to-human transmission", the world would be "in a position to immediately respond", Farrar said, urging equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

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Human Cases Of Bird Flu 'An Enormous Concern': WHO - Barron's

By Gabriella Sotelo, Sentient Media

Since late January, a mystery illness began to appear in older cows in three states showing up on dairy farms in Texas, Kansas and New Mexico. A troubling pattern began to emerge: a drop in cow milk production, cows not willing to eat and symptoms that last 10 to 14 days. On some farms, dead wild birds were found. By March 25, the mystery was confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly known as the bird flu. The virus has now been found in farms on five states in total: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico and Texas.

The bird flu is a virus that naturally and normally spreads among birds, but under the right conditions, it can spread like wildfire. The highly pathogenic avian influenza, in comparison to less virulent versions of the illness, can cause severe disease to appear among birds and also high mortality rates.

In the United States alone it has affected more than 82 million birds since 2022, according to the CDC. But recently the flu has been spreading to both land and sea mammals, creating new worries. Since mammals are biologically closer to humans, the World Health Organization has warned the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily.

Just last year a study was released detailing how avian flu is mutating, and how it has been able to severely affect mammalian brains. The disease has spread to bears, otters and in rare cases, humans, with the first case appearing in 2022 in the United States.

Research suggests that conditions on factory farms, where animals are often kept in crowded, filthy and stressful environments, serve as the ideal setting for disease to spread amongst animals conditions that make disease outbreaks hard to prevent. The outbreak in Texas and Kansas seems to be the first case of avian flu appearing in cattle. But for now, initial testing done by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory has found that there are no changes to the virus that would make it more transmissible to humans.

Even though the illness is affecting dairy cows causing them to experience a fever, reduced appetite, pneumonia, clogged milk ducts or producing thicker and yellowish milk the bird flu outbreak has not impacted the milk supply, officials say. When dairy farms send their milk to processing, they can only send milk from healthy animals, in this case healthy cows. Any milk from cows that were infected would be diverted or destroyed, according to USDA guidelines. Commercial milk, as in the milk that you would get at the grocery store, also has to go through pasteurization, which inactivates any bacteria or viruses, including the flu virus.

Questions remain about exactly how the virus is spreading among dairy cows. Andrew Bowman, a molecular epidemiologist and influenza expert at Ohio State University, told The New York Times that it is unclear right now whether or not the infected cows have gotten the virus directly from birds, or if the virus is also spreading from one cow to another.

Of the impacted herds, on average around 10 percent of cows have become sick, with most cases appearing in older cows. It also has also led to 10 to 20 percent reduction in milk production in the affected cows, though, again, any milk produced by affected cows will not appear on grocery shelves.

The USDA is not requiring farmers to euthanize the affected cows. But farmers with affected herds may be able to receive compensation or livestock assistance under one of the USDAs Disaster Assistance Program, which provides emergency assistance to eligible producers of livestock, honeybees and farm-raised fish for losses due to disease. It is unknown whether this will include the bird flu, and whether farmers can account for any related loss when filing in the following year.

The USDA insists the outbreak will not impact the dairy market. Milk loss resulting from symptomatic cattle to date is too limited to have a major impact on supply and there should be no impact on the price of milk or other dairy products, the agency said in a statement.

Still, if the outbreak in dairy herds were to keep spreading, the virus could lead to market disruptions and more farm animals at risk of disease and, ultimately, death.

Update: this piece has been updated to reflect that the outbreak on dairy farms has now been documented in five states.

This article originally appeared in Sentient at https://sentientmedia.org/bird-flu-dairy-cows/.

This story was originally published by Sentient Media.

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