This round of bird flu transmission has the characteristic of wide spread and extremely strong infectivity. At present, apart from Australia, relevant cases have been reported in other continents around the world. In addition to livestock, there have been several cases of human infection with avian flu virus this year, which has greatly alarmed the academic community. Former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that humans may face a pandemic of bird flu.
Robert Redfield, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has issued the latest warning that given the increasingly severe global bird flu situation, a major bird flu epidemic may occur.
Since March, 94 herds of cows in 12 states in the United States have reported cases of bird flu. The highly infectious virus caused 14 million turkeys and 80 million chickens in the United States to be infected and slaughtered in 2022.
In addition to the impact on tens of thousands of poultry and livestock, three human bird flu cases have also occurred in the United States this year. two people reported conjunctivitis and red eye symptoms, and the other had upper respiratory tract disease. All three patients have recovered.
According to a report from the World Health Organization on June 5, a 59-year-old patient in Mexico died of the H5N2 strain of bird flu. However, last Friday, the World Health Organization updated that the patient actually died of other complications.
Looking further back, the bird flu virus H5N1 has been spreading since 2020 and has now spread to six continents except Australia.
Beware of new outbreaks.
Redfield said that he believes that humans are likely to encounter a bird flu epidemic at some point, which is not a question of whether, but when.
He emphasized that compared with the new coronavirus, bird flu has a significant lethality after infecting humans. He pointed out that once the bird flu virus evolves the ability to attach to human receptors, it will spread among humans, and then a major outbreak will occur.
Redfield said that scientists have discovered that the five amino acid structures in the bird flu virus that bind to receptors must mutate and evolve in order to have the possibility of infecting humans. He is not sure how long this process will take, but from the infection situation of the US cow herd, this change is happening.
Seth Berkley, former CEO of the Global Vaccines and Immunization Alliance, harshly criticized the United States' inadequate response to bird flu in the cow herd last week.
He was shocked by the United States' response to bird flu. Faced with the spread of bird flu, the US government has been slow to take action in monitoring, testing, and prevention, which worries him and deepens his fear that the bird flu virus is evolving and will eventually infect humans.
He said that controlling bird flu is not a technical problem, and the challenge lies only in whether there is political will and financial support to achieve this goal.
Nirav Shah, deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also believes that the US government's testing of bird flu is not strong enough, and he hopes to test all farm workers who are at risk of contact with the virus.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that the risk is still low for the general public. But for agricultural workers who have close contact with animals and the people around them, the risk is higher.