Top US experts have warned that America is staring down the barrel of another pandemic as bird flu spirals out of control on US farms.
So far, the H5N1 outbreak in the states has affected nearly 1,000 dairy cow herds and resulted in more than 70 human cases, including the first confirmed death.
Meanwhile in the UK, seven human cases of the H5N1 virus have been detected since 2021—the two most recent patients were infected in January 2022 and January this year.
Most recently, UK experts issued alarm after detecting the world’s first case of bird flu in sheep was detected on a Yorkshire farm.
Virus specialists warned of the ‘repeated spillover’ of the potentially deadly infection into other mammals, and flagged its pandemic potential.
Now, a team of international experts from the Global Virus Network (GVN) have warned that the US poultry industry is at significant risk, and called for urgent efforts to understand and interrupt transmission to prevent human spread.
Meanwhile, Dr Marc Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri warned on Twitter that the virus ‘is trying really hard’ to ‘go pandemic’.
‘It sure is getting a lot of opportunities,’ he added.
US health chiefs said international governments must act urgently to protect the public from a potential pandemic
The GVN also called for increased initiatives to ‘educate the public’ about the risks of bird flu.
The virus most commonly presents much like the flu.
Milder symptoms include a cough, sore throat, a runny or stuff nose, muscle or body aches, headaches, fatigue shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.
However, more severe symptoms have also been reported including severe upper respiratory infections like pneumonia requiring hospitalisation, and a high temperature of over 37.7ºC (100ºF).
Like Covid, bird flu virus infection in people cannot be diagnosed by clinical signs and symptoms alone; laboratory testing is needed.
Swabs used to test for bird flu can be collected from the throat, nose, or eye of the sick person.
US health chiefs highlight that the testing is more accurate when the sample is collected during the first few days of illness.
For critically ill patients, collection and testing of lower respiratory tract specimens also may lead to diagnosis of bird flu virus infection.
However, for some patients who are no longer very sick or who have fully recovered, it may be difficult to detect bird flu virus in a specimen.
In January, US officials reported the first bird flu death in a person in Louisiana who had been hospitalised with severe respiratory symptoms.
The patient was said to be older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock.
A genetic analysis of the patient’s infection suggested the bird flu virus had mutated while inside their body, which could have caused a more severe illness.
It came a month after California declared a state of emergency over bird flu in response to the outbreak among the state’s dairy cattle.
The state identified H5N1 in 645 dairy herds since its first detection in late August, according to the state’s agriculture department.
Nearly half of the cases were reported within 30 days, highlighting the rapid spread of the virus.
Although California was not among the first states to detect H5N1 in dairy cattle, the outbreak has grown significantly since its initial discovery.
UK scientists tasked with developing ‘scenarios of early human transmission’ of bird flu have warned that 5 per cent of infected people could die if the virus took off in humans (shown under scenario three). Under another scenario, the scientists assumed 1 per cent of those infected would be hospitalised and 0.25 per cent would die ¿ similar to how deadly Covid was in autumn 2021 (scenario one). The other saw a death rate of 2.5 per cent (scenario two)
Another concerning case involved a Canadian teenager who was sickened with the same type of bird flu, and hospitalised on November 8 after falling ill on November 2.
As of the last report in late November, the teenager was still in the hospital and in a critical condition, requiring help to breathe, but was stable.
It was not clear how they caught the disease, with dogs and reptiles they had come into contact with all testing negative.
British experts have previously told MailOnline of the pandemic risk posed by H5N1 bird flu, but highlighted that the current threat to the public is low.
Professor Paul Hunter, a renowned infectious diseases expert from the University of East Anglia, said: ‘The concern is that should the virus evolve further to be better able to spread in humans then we would be at risk of another pandemic.
‘There is no evidence of that at present, but such a future shift cannot be excluded.’
Humans are unlikely to catch bird flu from eating poultry and game birds because it is heat-sensitive, and properly cooking the poultry will kill the virus.
Instead, human infections mostly occur when the virus gets into a person’s eyes, nose, mouth or is inhaled.
