The moment a case of bird flu was shown in a human in this country — a Texas dairy farm employee working among swollen cows — raises a red flag about the option of a pandemic ravaging the world.
The current outbreak of avian flu alone has killed millions of domestic and wild birds worldwide, but it has also killed many mammals around the world, adding to the high-profile devastation of an elephant seal population in Argentina.
While bird flu is rarely as deadly in cows as it is in seals, it has sickened cows across the country, indicating that cows infect each other as they move from state to state on farms. The virus was detected in the unpasteurized milk of those cows. Even more worrying, the detection of the virus in dairy staff suggests that bird flu can jump from one mammal species to another, we add.
Avian influenza, also known as H5N1, wreaked havoc in many parts of the world, including Asia, in 2006. The United States has been largely spared the adverse effects of the outbreak thanks to the efforts of our national health government, which has been running in those foreign countries. country to involve its spread.
However, this new variant of H5N1 is coming to this country through wild bird populations, which we obviously cannot control. If cows have become inflamed, it’s understandable that other animals, including our pets, can simply become inflamed and spread. the virus.
COVID-19 has killed more than a million Americans. But as severe as the pandemic was, it killed only about 1% of those infected, with particularly higher death rates among the elderly and those with past fitness problems, plus obesity.
However, avian influenza in humans is much more deadly, with mortality rates estimated at 50% compared to the 2006 pandemic in some countries. Although the chances of an avian influenza pandemic in humans are slim, the maximum mortality rate deserves to be enough to attract attention. Alarm bells are ringing among our public health officials.