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The Worst Bird-flu Outbreak In US History Is 'wiping Out Everything In Numbers We've Never Seen Before.' Here's What You Need To Know.
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The US is currently experiencing its worst-ever outbreak of bird flu, also known as avian influenza — and a new study has found that the strain could become endemic in the country.
The outbreak is "wiping out everything in numbers we've never seen before," Jennifer Mullinax, an assistant professor of environmental science and technology at the University of Maryland, told Sky News. The new H5N1 strain has already killed over 58 million chickens, turkeys, and other birds, Reuters reported.
The US is no stranger to the impact of the disease, with the H5N8 strain having led to the culling of 50 million birds in 2015. But the new, more contagious strain is particularly affecting wild birds, Sky News reported.
Bill Powers with his flock of white turkeys, kept under shelter to prevent exposure to bird flu, on November 14, 2022 in Townsend, Delaware. Nathan Howard/Getty Images"Unlike H5N8, this disease is heavily impacting wild birds," Johanna Harvey, a postdoctoral researcher and the lead author of the study published in Conservation Biology at the University of Maryland, said.
"It's difficult to estimate how many birds are truly affected across wild populations, but we're seeing dramatic disease impacts in raptors, sea birds, and colonial nesting birds. And we now have the highest amount of poultry loss to avian influenza, so this is a worst-case scenario," she added.
The researchers believe that bird flu will probably become endemic — a phenomenon where a disease is constantly present within an area or community in the US — which could affect food security and the economy.
Last week, the US government started testing four new bird-flu vaccines to try and protect the poultry from this mass outbreak, Reuters reported.
Are humans in danger?The disease can and does affect humans, but it's rare.
The first case of H5N1 infection in a human in the US was reported in April 2022. A man was also diagnosed with the virus in Chile, according to the World Health Organization.
Most cases of human infection have been in Southeast Asia, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were only three cases of human infection in 2023, two in Cambodia, and one in China. One of the people infected in Cambodia, an 11-year-old girl, died from the illness.
Speaking about this death to AP, James Wood, the head of the department of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, said there is no reason to be unduly concerned about human infection with bird flu.
"Tragic though this case in Cambodia is, we expect there to be some cases of clinical disease with such a widespread infection. Clearly, the virus needs careful monitoring and surveillance to check that it has not mutated or recombined, but the limited numbers of cases of human disease have not increased markedly, and this one case in itself does not signal the global situation has suddenly changed," he said.
Markets are in troubleAvian flu is ravaging farmers and the markets.
In January, Insider's George Glover explained the egg crisis facing Americans as prices surged by almost 60% in 2022 due to the influenza outbreak.
The average cost of a dozen eggs rose by 59% last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with prices more than doubling in West Virginia and six states in the upper Midwest.
This new strain of bird flu has killed more than 58 million chickens, turkeys, and other birds. PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty ImagesThe unprecedented spread of disease and 2022's high inflation rates raising farmers' costs caused the jump — and it doesn't look like it will change soon.
What Is A Pandemic?
"Pandemic flu" has been one of the buzzwords of late 2005. But how does the phrase that's on everyone's lips differ from "epidemic," that other well-worn disease term?
Apparently, a lot of people aren't sure. Merriam-Webster reports that "pandemic" is the seventh most frequently looked-up word in its online dictionary this year. The definition: "occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population."
This is almost the same as the dictionary definition for "epidemic," and it doesn't explain much when it comes to influenza -- a.K.A. The flu.
An epidemic of influenza is different from the dreaded pandemic that scientists and world health officials fear is nigh. We might see an epidemic of seasonal influenza during any given year. In fact, we just had one.
Flu reached epidemic levels in the U.S. For 10 weeks in a row during the 2004-2005 season. Records kept by the CDC show that during the week ending March 5, 2005, 8.9% of all deaths reported in 122 U.S. Cities were due to influenza and pneumonia (a common complication of the flu).
The CDC's definition of a flu epidemic relates to the percentage of deaths in a given week caused by influenza and pneumonia. The "epidemic threshold" is a certain percentage above what is considered normal for that period. The normal level, or baseline, is statistically determined based on data from past flu seasons.
Christine Pearson, a spokeswoman for the CDC, cautions that the definition of an influenza epidemic doesn't apply to other diseases.
Seasonal flu epidemics may sicken millions, but those who die are typically a small number of the elderly, very young children, and people with weak immune systems. That's not the case during the worst influenza pandemics.
There are two main features of an influenza pandemic. First, the virus is a new strain that has never infected people before. Second, it's on a global scale. Sometimes it's also unusually deadly.
"A pandemic is basically a global epidemic -- an epidemic that spreads to more than one continent," says Dan Epstein, a spokesman for the Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization.
Influenza pandemics have struck about three times every century since the 1500s, or roughly every 10-50 years. There was one in 1957-1958 and one in 1968-1969. The most infamous pandemic flu of the 20th century, however, was that of 1918-1919. An estimated 40 million people died in less than a year, and what made it so different from seasonal flu epidemics is that it killed primarily young people, those aged 20-45.
The world is closely watching a virus known as avian influenza H5N1, or "bird flu." Don't confuse it with pandemic flu. It isn't one. At least, it isn't one yet.
At this point it's known that people have caught the virus from sick poultry, and that the virus is very deadly to people who are infected. Scientists worry that at some point the H5N1 virus will mutate into a form that can pass from human to human, which it cannot do at present.
"If it adapts to a strain that's contagious among humans it will no longer be a bird virus. It will become a human influenza virus," Epstein tells WebMD.
Then, if this hypothetical strain is able to pass easily between people, it may become a pandemic flu.
"It's impossible to predict whether this virus will mutate enough to be easily passable from human to human," Pearson tells WebMD.
Another flu pandemic is almost a certainty. But an entirely different virus may cause the next pandemic. It will not necessarily develop from H5N1.
The three pandemics of the 20th century were caused by what are known as "type A" flu viruses. It's possible that a type A virus that's in circulation among humans today may change into a new strain that's very contagious. Then we might have a pandemic.
The CDC keeps track of the influenza strains that circulate widely in the U.S. Each year. In the 2004-2005 flu season, the dominant strains were influenza type A (H3N2) and influenza type B viruses. A version of the virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic, type A (H1N1), also circulated.
The World Health Organization (WHO) constantly monitors flu cases throughout the world, relying on information from a wide network of sources, including government health agencies, university scientists, and international aid organizations.
WHO has developed a system of identifying where the world stands with regard to pandemic flu. The system has six phases:
We are currently in phase 3, which marks the beginning of the "pandemic alert period," because of what has been developing with avian influenza virus H5N1.
It's possible that the H5N1 will turn into a human influenza virus. But if it does, it may never be contagious enough to spark a pandemic. Or a virulent new strain may be contained before it can spread far.
The world waits, watches, and tries to prepare.
This Season's Bird Flu Outbreak Was Deadliest Seen In The U.S. For Birds.
This season's bird flu outbreak was deadliest seen in the U.S. For birds.
This season's bird flu outbreak was deadliest seen in the U.S. For birds. 00:37This won't come as a surprise to anyone who tried to buy eggs this winter: the most recent outbreak of bird flu was the deadliest the U.S. Has ever seen.
It involved more than 58 million birds on farms and more than 6,000 known cases in wild birds. That impacted egg prices, but the big concern is that bird fly could cross over to humans.
Fortunately, that only happened to one person in the U.S. Last year. It was a man who was working with sick birds.
However, it has happened more than 860 times in other countries in the past 20 years. The disease killed more than half the people it infected.
Right now, officials are planning to concentrate efforts to fight bird flu on the animals themselves and people who work with them.
Researchers have developed a vaccine, which lab tests indicate might work on humans if necessary. They plan to test it on chickens this spring.
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