What is bird flu, and why is it spreading?

 The worst bird flu outbreak in history is currently occurring around the world.

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By Mehran Mazari

Some wild species, including seals, otters, wild dogs, and foxes, are increasingly contracting the disease in addition to birds.

A contagious
an illness affecting domestic and wild birds, bird flu has been present for a century. It typically starts to flare up in the fall and then subsides in the spring and summer.

Paul Digard, a professor of virology at the Roslin Institute at Edinburgh University, claims that the disease started in ducks in Europe and Asia before spreading to other birds.

The current most common strain of the virus, H5N1, was initially discovered in China in 1996.

Within a few days, it can infect entire flocks of domestic birds and spread through the saliva and droppings of the birds, tainted food, and contaminated water.

Since the outbreak started in October 2021, "an unprecedented number of outbreaks" of bird flu have been detected worldwide, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).

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"Devastating impacts on animal health and welfare" and "an alarming rate of wild bird die-offs" have resulted from them.

What makes this outbreak so unusual?

This outbreak has killed more wild birds than ever before, with marine birds taking a particularly heavy toll.

Numerous species, including buzzards, golden eagles, gannets, and gulls, have shown signs of the virus.

Professor Munir Iqbal, who is in charge of the Pirbright Institute's group studying the avian influenza virus (AIV), claims that the present virus has impacted 80 different bird species.

In Scotland, over 40% of the skua population has perished, while thousands of Dalmatian pelicans have perished in Greece.

According to the UK's National Trust, the Farne Islands may have lost between 30,000 and 50,000 wild birds to bird flu.

Why this epidemic is so much worse than others is a mystery to scientists. It's possible that the virus has evolved to make it easier for it to move from bird to bird or to linger in the environment for extended periods of time.

The virus may currently be widespread among wild birds, according to Dr. Nancy Beerens, a bird flu expert at Wageningen Bioveterinary Research in the Netherlands, which examines suspected bird flu samples.

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It's unlikely that the virus will once again disappear from the avian population because it has infected so many different types of wild birds, according to her.

What steps are being taken to combat the outbreak?

China has been immunizing its household flocks of chicken.

Other nations stay away from this, though, as it is difficult to determine which birds have developed immunity and which have not. As a result, meat and eggs from flocks that have received vaccinations cannot be exported.

Dr. Maurice Pitesky of the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, states that when a nation agrees to vaccinate, "there are strict export controls."

Governments in France, the Netherlands, and the US have started vaccination trials as the first step of a drawn-out process to try and bring the bird flu outbreak under control, despite the commercial disadvantages of immunizing chickens.

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Is bird flu passing to mammals?

Numerous wild mammals, including otters, foxes, dolphins, and seals, have perished in the UK as a result of contracting the H5N1 bird flu by eating infected wild birds.

Residents are advised by local authorities to keep their pets away from the carcasses of dead wild animals, such as dead seals.

Grizzly bears in the US, captive mink in Canada, and wild canines in a UK zoo have all been identified as carrying the H5N1 bird flu.

It's possible that the virus changed to make it easier to infect mammals.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus could grow more suited to mammals and spread to humans and other animals, according to the WOAH, which states that the current situation "highlights the risk."

The spread of avian flu to animals, according to the UK government's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, is not a recent trend.

It states that rather than from one another, the animals most likely contracted the illness directly from sick birds, and that "there is a very low likelihood of any widespread infection in [British] mammals."

In the UK, foxes and otters catch the bird flu.

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Is bird flu a risk to humans?

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 457 people have died and 870 people have had avian flu over the past 20 years.

These incidents happened when sick birds came into touch with people.

According to the World Health Organisation, the H5N1 virus's continued spread needs to be closely watched to determine whether it is evolving into a form that may infect humans.