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WHO Sounds Alarm: Human Cases of Bird Flu Prompt Concern Over Search for New Hosts

The World Health Organization (WHO) voiced serious concerns on Thursday about the increasing number of animals, including humans, being infected with the H5N1 bird flu. In Geneva, WHO Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar told reporters, “This remains, I think, an enormous concern.” An official from the UN health agency described the current bird flu outbreak, which started in 2020 and has spread to cows and goats among mammals, as “a global zoonotic animal pandemic.”

“The main worry is that the virus, which was previously infecting chickens, ducks, and then a growing number of mammals, is now evolving and developing the capacity to infect humans and, most importantly, the ability to spread from human to human,” stated Farrar. Although there’s no proof that the influenza A (H5N1) virus is spreading to humans, the hundreds of cases where humans have contracted the virus through contact with animals have resulted in an ‘extraordinarily high’ fatality rate, which has raised concerns.

The UN organization reports that in the past 15 months, 889 human cases have resulted in 463 deaths across 23 states, making the mortality rate a concerning 52%. Eight US states have discovered highly virulent avian influenza in a dairy herd. This is the first time the strain of bird flu that has killed millions of wild birds in recent years has been found in cattle. The virus has been found in a variety of mammals in the past several years. If “you come into the mammalian population, then you’re getting closer to humans,” Farrar stated, pointing out that “this virus is just looking for new, novel hosts.”.

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Bird flu in Kerala

In Kerala’s Alappuzha district, there have been reports of an epidemic of avian flu in two locations. Ducks raised in wards 1 and 3 of Edathva and Cheruthana Grama Panchayats were found to have contracted H5N1 avian influenza, according to officials. The confirmation of the infection came about when samples of ducks exhibiting avian flu symptoms were sent to a laboratory in Bhopal for examination.