The Watchman Has Reported About 870 Cases of Human Infection With the Avian Influenza h5n1 Virus From 21 Countries. Up to 457 of These Cases Resulted in Death. This Predicts a Reasonably High Case Fatality Rate in Infected People—Pestilence Will Become Commonplace

HNewsWire: “The recent spillover to mammals needs to be monitored closely,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, told reporters on Wednesday, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). But “for the moment, WHO assesses the risk to humans as low.”

Because avian flu is not designed to infect humans, human infections are uncommon and person-to-person transmission is even more difficult. According to the AFP, specialists believe that the more H5N1 spreads among animals, the more likely it is to mutate into a form that can jump to humans.

Despite the current minimal risk to public health, officials must prepare "to meet outbreaks in humans, and also to control them as quickly as possible," according to Sylvie Briand, WHO's director of Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness and Emergency Preparedness.

The H5N1 virus was discovered in domestic waterfowl in 1996 and spread to migratory birds in 2005. The virus was then transported around the planet by these long-distance fliers, explains Kai Kupferschmidt of Science. During that time, the virus infected only a few humans, but those infections were fatal. Between January 2003 and November 2022, the WHO reported 868 worldwide cases of H5N1 in humans, 457 of which were fatal.

The world is currently seeing a huge outbreak of avian flu. According to Fortune, the United States is facing the worst avian flu outbreak in its history, with the virus directly or indirectly causing 58 million bird fatalities in the last year. According to the AFP, Europe is also seeing its most serious outbreak.

The bird flu outbreak is the deadliest one in almost 10 years—which has helped cause egg prices to steeply rise—and while infection in humans is rare, some experts are gravely concerned it could eventually make the leap and spread among humans.

KEY FACTS

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bird flu is caused by infection of avian influenza A viruses and typically affects aquatic birds (like ducks, pelicans and swans), but can also affect domestic poultry (like chicken and turkey) and other animals, including humans.

As of February 1, the CDC reports the current outbreak has led to one case of human infection (which happened in April 2022), 6,111 wild birds with the disease and over 58 million poultry birds affected—and cases in birds have been reported in every state.

There is no evidence the one human infection spread to anyone else, but when humans have been infected by animals, the virus is deadly, as 56% of the reported cases in humans ended in fatality, according to the World Health Organization.

The virus is passed via contact with nasal secretions, feces and saliva of infected animals and through contact with surfaces infected birds have touched.

Although wild birds have long been infecting poultry, the disease’s spread to migratory birds has raised concern that it could mutate into a new variant and pass among people, since migratory birds are able to spread it more widely and to more animals.

In October 2022, the disease began spreading among minks at a mink farm in Spain, marking the first time the virus mutated to favor mammal-to-mammal transmission, according to Science.

This is the deadliest outbreak in the U.S. since the 2014-2015 outbreak, which killed 50 million domestic birds—the 2014-2015 outbreak lasted between December 2014 and June 2015, and the first case of the current outbreak was reported in January 2022.