H5N1: The Next Pandemic?

angrysoba

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angrysoba
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Sorry, I know the title is a bit click-baity, BUT... there are a few concerning developments that bird flu (AKA: H5N1) is getting closer to having pandemic potential.

Nature

An outbreak of avian influenza on a mink farm in Spain provides the strongest evidence so far that the H5N1 strain of flu can spread from one infected mammal to another.

The outbreak of H5N1 flu, described in a report in Eurosurveillance on 19 January1, occurred on an American mink (Neovison vison) farm in Carral in October 2022. Genetic sequencing showed that the animals were infected with a new variant of H5N1, which includes genetic material from a strain found in gulls, as well as a genetic change known to increase the ability of some animal-flu viruses to reproduce in mammals.

The new variant puts bird flu in “uncharted territory”, says Wendy Puryear, a virologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Researchers have warned that, without careful precautions, the disease might eventually spread among people.
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There have also been some recent cases of bears with avian flu. Not sure if there is evidence one way or another if any of them caught it from each other.

Smithsonian

Amid an avian flu outbreak that’s decimating wild and domestic bird populations, scientists have documented the first cases in wild grizzly bears. The three bears, which were euthanized last fall in Montana, later tested positive for the virus, the state’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks department announced in a statement last week.

The highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus has previously been found in a fox and a skunk in Montana, as well as in other mammals such as raccoons, black bears and coyotes in other areas of the country. These are the first recorded cases among wild grizzlies, per the department.
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angrysoba said:
Sorry, I know the title is a bit click-baity, BUT... there are a few concerning developments that bird flu (AKA: H5N1) is getting closer to having pandemic potential.

Nature



There have also been some recent cases of bears with avian flu. Not sure if there is evidence one way or another if any of them caught it from each other.

Smithsonian
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(going for the easy joke)
Great... Flying bears, that's all we need.

Fortunately now most countries have a template in place for dealing with a pandemic. Whether people will adhere to any new edicts is another story.
 
alfaniner said:
... Fortunately now most countries have a template in place for dealing with a pandemic. ...
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Hah!

COVID is airborne. That paradigm shift is hard for healthcare professionals to get used to even now.

Most influenza is droplet spread. There have been a couple times in history when it looks like it had been airborne but for the most part even H5N1 HPAI is likely to be droplet spread.


The healthcare community has jumbled those 2 routes of transmission often with ineffective precautions for either.

The saving grace: it will be easier for the healthcare community to go back to implementing droplet precautions. And the virus should be detected in the human population early on if those cases occur in a country with a decent public health infrastructure.

But we're doomed if the jump gets hold in a country that does not detect it and doesn't isolate the cases early enough to slow its adaptation to humans.

We've already had cases of the H5N1 HPAI in humans and it spread to family members. What it didn't do is become well adapted thereby producing enough viral shedding to spread to casual contacts.

We can hope for the best.
 
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angrysoba said:
Sorry, I know the title is a bit click-baity, BUT... there are a few concerning developments that bird flu (AKA: H5N1) is getting closer to having pandemic potential.
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I posted on this a while back, when scientists first noticed the genetic shift making it more likely to infect mammals. The fact that it's spread among mink is a further alarm, because mustelids and humans have some recent history with viruses...

I'm packing my survival kit, because having seen how pathetically we've dealt with covid, I'd have very little hope of us dealing with something as deadly as HPAI H5N1 might be.
 
It's been monitored for a while. It's slowly setting the stage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_spread_of_H5N1
The global spread of H5N1 influenza in birds is considered a significant pandemic threat. While other H5N1 influenza strains are known, they are significantly different on a genetic level from a recent, highly pathogenic, emergent strain of H5N1, which was able to achieve hitherto unprecedented global spread in 2008.[1]
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Having just got through NCoV-19 and a surge of flu A H1N1 I will be really pissed off if we have a pandemic of A H5N1, not sure the world economies will cope that well either.
 
Planigale said:
Having just got through NCoV-19 and a surge of flu A H1N1 I will be really pissed off if we have a pandemic of A H5N1, not sure the world economies will cope that well either.
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Not only that, but the anti-vaxx lobby are in full-scale pandemic preparedness mode meaning that they will be able to convince millions of people that it is all a hoax and/or it was a bioweapon created by the WEF in Ukraine in Zelensky's biolabs, the vaccines are bad, and that ivermectin will be the only treatment.
 
Planigale said:
Having just got through NCoV-19 and a surge of flu A H1N1 I will be really pissed off if we have a pandemic of A H5N1, not sure the world economies will cope that well either.
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If H5N1 becomes a pandemic and replicates the death rate seen so far, the world economies won't exist.
 
angrysoba said:
Not only that, but the anti-vaxx lobby are in full-scale pandemic preparedness mode meaning that they will be able to convince millions of people that it is all a hoax and/or it was a bioweapon created by the WEF in Ukraine in Zelensky's biolabs, the vaccines are bad, and that ivermectin will be the only treatment.
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That means we're ******, basically.
 
I just watched a HBO documentary. The next pandemic will be fungus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(TV_series)

All jokes aside, while they can't (yet) cause a pandemic, the threat of widespread fungal diseases is real.

There’s Cryptococcus neoformans, a soil yeast that can be inhaled by humans, where it spreads from the lungs to the blood and brain. It preys on the immunocompromised, particularly those with HIV; mortality is between 41 and 61 per cent.

Candida auris is a type of yeast that can infect the blood, bones and organs and which has an extremely high mortality rate of between 29 and 53 per cent. The fungus has been responsible for several hospital outbreaks, with infection trends increasing across the world; it is resistant to many of the antifungal medications we have. This fungus has been labelled the new “fungal superbug” because of its resistance and the fact that many of the people it infects have just undergone surgery.
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https://www.theage.com.au/healthcar...-how-real-is-the-science-20230127-p5cfux.html

And climate change isn't helping.

But the temperature gap keeping us safe from fungi is small, just a few degrees. And the world has already warmed 1.5 degrees since pre-industrial times. As fungi mutate to tolerate higher heat levels, a range of new environments open up for them, including human beings, who are full of the sugars they love to consume. “The reason we’re seeing these outbreaks of fungal infection that we did not see 20 years ago is really because of global heating,” says Traven.
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A bit off topic but interesting to me.
 
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Yeah, I'd seen that.

The number of species of mammals catching H5N1 is getting to the disturbing stage.

Luckily, having the benefit of the covid pandemic, it'll be easy to get people to mask up and follow anti-infection guidelines, and nobody will turn up to work with it.

(Probably better to hold a mask over your face than your butt, but you can't be too careful, I guess)
 
The Atheist said:
Yeah, I'd seen that.

The number of species of mammals catching H5N1 is getting to the disturbing stage.

Luckily, having the benefit of the covid pandemic, it'll be easy to get people to mask up and follow anti-infection guidelines, and nobody will turn up to work with it.

(Probably better to hold a mask over your face than your butt, but you can't be too careful, I guess)
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Unfortunately, in the US, it's become so politicized to mask or take any precautions that it isn't "easy " to get anyone to do anything! :mad:
 
Carlotta said:
Unfortunately, in the US, it's become so politicized to mask or take any precautions that it isn't "easy " to get anyone to do anything! :mad:
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That comment was 100% tongue-in-cheek.

It's not just USA. I'd say societal tolerance for measures against pandemics is at an all-time low everywhere in the world.
 
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