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What is bird flu and how worried should we be?

2024-06-19 11:29:00, Kosova & Bota CNA
What is bird flu and how worried should we be?
Photo taken from the BBC

Bird flu is spreading across the US in a surprising development that has scientists worried. There is no evidence that the virus could cause a pandemic in humans, but authorities are keeping an eye on the situation.

What is bird flu?

Bird flu is a disease caused by a virus that infects birds and sometimes other animals, such as foxes, seals and otters. The main strain - circulating among wild birds around the world - is a type of virus known as H5N1. It appeared in China in the late 1990s.

Bird migration has led to outbreaks in domestic and wild birds. The virus has rarely infected humans. Scientists say the current risk to humans is low. Bird-to-human transmission is rare and there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission.

H5N1 is now spreading rapidly in US cow herds in what the US Centers for Disease Control, CDC, describes as an "ongoing multi-state outbreak".

The jump of the virus in cattle surprised scientists, who thought that cows were not susceptible to it.

Can bird flu spread to humans?

There have been cases of people catching H5N1 from time to time, usually from contact with sick animals, in several countries, including Cambodia, Chile, China, Vietnam, Australia, the US and the UK.

Several hundred human cases have been reported since 1997, about half of whom have died. Many US states are investing in preventative measures, such as protective clothing and goggles for farm workers.

Experts who study the virus say there is no evidence that it has mutated into a form that would pose a major threat to humans. Virologist Tom Peacock says that the more it spreads across the US, the higher the chance that the virus will get into humans./CNA 





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