Bird Flu In The News: What We Know
Bird Flu In The News: What We Know
Does this feel oddly familiar?
It was only four years ago that the rumblings of Covid started in the unpopular corners of Twitter (now X) and I came to the public in February saying “Hey pay attention…” and then a month later the world shut down.
This is NOT this… right now or yet at least.
But bird flu is in the news again, and the truth is it’s been a hot topic of conversation with epidemiologists on X for a long time.
In fact, in the endless debriefing about how we all handled Covid (terribly by the way), many said the next big pandemic would come from bird flu and be way way worse.
This has been a repeating mantra for the last couple of years as scientists reported on bird flu attacking populations of both wild and domesticated birds, and even some mammals like sea lions.
If it’s true that this is not recent news, bird flu has been circulating and decimating animal populations in pockets, why is bird flu popping up in mainstream media now?
Great question.
Here’s what we know.
Bird flu is a strain of influenza that is pretty lethal to bird populations (and several of the mammal species that have gotten hit by spillover)
There have been several hundred human cases of bird flu over the years and the case fatality rate is about 50%. For comparison, Covid is sitting at .1% right now. It was much higher at the beginning of the pandemic but never anywhere near 50%.
There doesn’t appear to be any human to human transmission of bird flu. The humans who have been infected, were infected because of close contact with an infected bird.
Whenever poultry farms find a sick bird, they aggressively cull the population to prevent spread.
In recent days (late March) reports of sick cows from a dairy farm trickled in. This was the first time a cow presented with bird flu symptoms. Since that first report, 16 dairy farms in the US are reporting bird flu in cows.
This means it’s spread as farmers move cows from farm to farm.
Scientists have determined this infection appears to have a similar family lineage (based on the sequencing of the virus).
The question of course — how is it spreading?
Some clues, but no conclusions. And I would be careful to draw conclusions as recent history tells us scientists don’t always know (we thought Covid was droplets and it turned out to be airborne).
Have birds infected poultry which then it spilled over into cows? Or did the wild birds infect the cows directly?
Are the cows transmitting it to each other by droplets, air, or perhaps by the equipment used to milk them (an article suggests the virus appears in the milk and udders and so this is a working theory)
Some farms reported that the farm cats were showing signs of flu back in February, and the thinking there is that they were a canary in the coal mine since they tend to drink the spilled milk from the cows
There has been a case of a person getting the flu after being in close contact with the cow
Unlike Covid, there is no human to human transmission of the bird flu (for now) so there is no immediate cause for alarm.
But experts and government agencies are worried that it’s only a matter of time before the virus mutates and it’s anybody’s guess what might happen in that instance. Given that this pathogen is known for it’s high case fatality rate, no one wants to wait around and find out.
Curiously right now no one has recommended the culling of dairy cows with the same intensity as they do when it hits poultry. Is that due to:
The virus is concentrated in one part of the body?
Dairy farmers are not reporting it because they don’t want to cull their herd and are distrusting of authorities?
Government agencies don’t want to dramatically disrupt the food chain by requiring such drastic measures?
There’s not enough info yet and once there is, maybe the directive will be different
CDC has put out alerts for medical professionals to be on the lookout for human cases of bird flu.
There’s no question - the virus is spreading somehow in cows and traveling across our country’s dairy farms.
The big question that lots of people are wondering? Do we have to be careful about meat, eggs, and dairy?
According to the experts? No. Pasteurized dairy kills the virus, just make sure to fully cook your eggs, and so far no beef seems to be infected (just the milk).
But we know how these stories go. Directives change. Scientists and experts aren’t that many steps ahead of us. The good news is a vaccine is a great tool against this virus.
The problem of course is that our country is tired and worn down after covid. Half the population is anti-vaccine. It does happen to be an election year. Public health trust is at an all time low. If in fact bird flu became an issue, would we come together to handle it? Yea, probably not.
Right now you can find a large segment of the population that believes that this is all a part of the election year // mail in the ballots theory. That the CDC is a joke and this is a nothingburger. The scientists who’ve been talking about bird flu for years are now talking with more fervor and intensity (and a bit of despair that no one is really going to listen after the last circus).
It would be nice it if was a nothingburger. Who knows really, but the facts are - the bird flu has regularly infected multiple bird populations and mammal populations and now is in our dairy farms.
This might disrupt our food chain.
It might fizzle out.
It might mutate into a highly pathogenic virus that passes between humans and we end up with another pandemic.
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