Bird Flu Isn ’t a Danger to Humans … Yet

Bird flu appears to be on the move. A particularly nasty strain of the H5N1 virus is currently causing the worst outbreak of the disease among birds since it was first identified in China in 1996. Europe is deep into its second commercial season of widespread contagion, and the U.S. is seeing its deadliest 12-month period for poultry in recorded history, with 58 million animals affected so far. Records are also being broken in Japan, where a plan to cull 10 million poultry was announced in mid-January amid the appearance of a different but similar subtype, H5N2. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The past few years have taught us all how quickly a virus can spread, and avian influenza is no exception. Already, the current strain has affected a wider geographic area and more species than any other bird flu in the last two decades. Though it’s still too early for experts to say exactly why this is, the unique features of this outbreak (and what we do know about avian flu as a category of viruses), can get us a bit closer to understanding what might come next. Is avian flu going to be the next human pandemic? According to experts, the current form of avian flu spreading among poultry is unlikely to significantly impact human populations. For as long as the virus has been around, there have been cases of infection in humans, of which over 50% have been fatal. But overall cases have been fairly rare. This is primarily due to the way that flu viruses bind to cells d...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Disease Explainer healthscienceclimate Source Type: news