Bird flu, known more formally as avian influenza, has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears as causing the next pandemic
Is avian influenza a legitimate concern or just more fear mongering?
In April 2022, a man in Colorado was the first human in the U.S. to test positive for bird flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced. The patient, who was younger than 40, was involved in the culling of presumptively infected poultry at a commercial farm in Colorado's Montrose County. The patient has since recovered. Keep in mind this case could have been mitigated had the man followed proper biosecurity practices and worn the proper personal protective equipment while culling birds.
This human case started the alarm bells ringing as leading scientists began calling for the government to invest in development and testing of vaccines against the avian influenza strain known as H5N1.
Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/21459611/bird-flu-jab-needed/
“If there was an outbreak in Europe, the Middle East, America or Mexico tomorrow of H5N1 in humans, we wouldn't be able to vaccinate the world within 2023,” said Sir Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist designate of the Word Health Organization at a press briefing in London.
Why would we need to “vaccinate the world” against avian influenza?
History of H5N1 Avian Influenza Outbreaks in Humans
In 1997, H5N1 poultry outbreaks began in China and Hong Kong. This virus made the leap directly from poultry into humans causing 18 associated human cases and 6 fatalities in Hong Kong. These cases were tied to chickens in live poultry markets and were the first known instance of purely avian virus causing severe human disease and death. The slaughter of all (1.5 million) poultry in farms and markets of Hong Kong stopped the outbreak.
Surveillance for HPAI viruses and poultry die-offs continued in the region, because while a pandemic caused by an H5N1 avian influenza virus was a low probability, it would have a high impact on human health due to the high mortality rate (60 percent) if it did gain the ability to spread from human to human.
Then again in late 2002, outbreaks of HPAI H5N1 virus were detected in wild poultry in several parks in Hong Kong, and the virus was isolated from dead chickens in the retail markets. At the same time, there were reports of a pneumonia-like illness in several people who had been hospitalized. Virologists thought that once again avian influenza had made the leap into the human population. While the poultry virus was determined to be avian influenza H5N1, the virus isolated from the ill people was a ‘novel’ coronavirus later named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
However, since 2003 introductions of avian influenza viruses into human populations continued sporadically in Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, Viet Nam, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and China). Avian influenza H5N1 virus would go on to cause more than 860 human infections with a greater than 50% death rate.
The Deadliest Bird Flu Outbreak in U.S. History-For Poultry
In January 2022, the first highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus infection in wild birds in the United States since 2016 was reported by USDA/APHIS. Wild birds can be infected with HPAI viruses and show no signs of illness, but these viruses are deadly to domesticated birds. The HPAI H5N1 viruses outbreak in chicken and turkey flocks spread across 24 U.S. states since it was first detected in Indiana on Feb. 8, 2022.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140076426/what-we-know-about-the-deadliest-u-s-bird-flu-outbreak-in-history
Avian influenza is easy to control in poultry because once confirmed, state officials quarantine the affected premises, and all birds on the property are depopulated to prevent the spread of the disease. This can be costly to farmers and has a huge impact on the food supply. Last year the multi-state outbreak in the U.S. resulted in culling over 58 million birds. The mass culls last year also sent the price of eggs sky-rocketing, contributing to the global food crisis.
But the virus is infecting more and more migratory birds, allowing it to spread more widely, even to various mammals, raising the risk that a new variant could spread to and among people. With wild birds acting as conduits, avian influenza had been found in mammalian species like dolphins, foxes and bears.
Do Humans Pose a More Worrisome Route of Spread of Avian Viruses?
While officials are concerned the spread of avian influenza in poultry and other animals, perhaps they should be more cognizant of their own behaviors around avian influenza viruses.
Alarm bells rang in early February 2009 when Czech researchers inoculated ferrets with an H3N2 virus product received from Baxter International Inc. and the animals promptly died.
Source: https://www.fiercepharma.com/vaccines/baxter-vax-products-contained-bird-flu-virus
Baxter International confirmed that vaccine shipments sent to subcontractors in Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany were contaminated with live H5N1 avian flu viruses. Baxter International, which is based in Deerfield, Ill., said the contamination was the result of an error in its research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.
Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.
People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses have somehow co-mingled in the Baxter research facility. That should not be allowed to happen. Luckily none of the 37 people who were exposed to the contaminated product became infected.
The circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau remain unanswered. Although, Baxter supposedly identified how the contamination happened and has taken steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.