Experts are sounding the alarm that the virus causing an unprecedented surge in avian influenza worldwide is mutating faster than previously thought and could strike again when the world’s attention is elsewhere, AFP reported.
As a result, there is a growing call for countries to take action and vaccinate their poultry
Although experts stress that the risk to humans remains low, they are concerned about the increasing number of bird flu cases in mammals.
In talks with AFP, experts revealed that the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which first emerged in 1996, had previously been limited to seasonal outbreaks.
However, a significant change occurred in mid-2021. According to Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization’s Associate Center for the Study of Animal Influenza, this change has significantly increased the infectivity of the virus group.
The impact of this change raises significant concerns among experts.
Since then, outbreaks have continued throughout the year, spreading to new areas and leading to widespread mortality among wild birds and the deaths of millions of poultry.
Webby, a researcher at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the US city of Memphis, told AFP it was “absolutely” the largest outbreak of avian influenza the world had ever seen.
He led the study, published this week in the journal Nature Communications, showing how the virus evolved rapidly as it spread from Europe to North America.
The study found that the virus had increased in virulence, meaning it caused more dangerous disease after it arrived in North America.
The researchers also infected a ferret with one of the new strains of bird flu.
An unexpectedly “huge” amount of the virus was found in his brain, Webby said, indicating that it caused more severe disease than previous strains.
Stressing that the risk in humans was still low, he said that “this virus is not static, it is changing”.
“This raises the possibility that even by chance” the virus “could pick up genetic features that allow it to become a more human virus,” he said.
In rare cases, humans are sometimes infected with the deadly virus, usually after coming into contact with infected birds.
Fears and premonitions
The virus has also been detected in a growing number of mammals, which Webby described as a “really, really troubling sign.”
Chile reported last week that bird flu has killed nearly 9,000 sea lions, penguins, otters, porpoises and dolphins on its northern coast since the start of the year.
Most mammals are thought to have contracted the virus by eating an infected bird.
But Webby said what “scares us the most” are indications from a Spanish mink farm or South American sea lions that the virus could be transmitted to mammals.
“There is still no clear evidence that the virus survives easily in mammals,” said Ian Brown, head of virology at the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency.
Brown told AFP that while the virus is becoming “more efficient and more effective in birds”, it remains “unadaptable to humans”.
Avian viruses bind to different receptors on host cells than human viruses, Webby said.
It would take “two or three minor changes to a protein in the virus” to make it more adaptable to humans, he said.
“That’s what we’re really looking for.”
– Vaccination of chickens –
One way to reduce the total number of bird flu cases, and therefore the risk to humans, is for countries to vaccinate their poultry, Webby said.
A few countries, including China, Egypt and Vietnam, have already promoted vaccination for poultry.
But many other countries were reluctant due to import restrictions in some areas, and fears that vaccinated birds could slip through the net even if infected.
In April, the United States began testing several vaccine candidates for potential use in birds.
France recently said it expects to begin vaccinating poultry as early as autumn this year.
Christine Middlemiss, the UK’s chief veterinary officer, said vaccinating poultry was “not a silver bullet because the virus is constantly changing”.
But countries traditionally reluctant should consider vaccinating chickens more frequently, Middlemiss told AFP at an event at the UK embassy in Paris last week.
World Organization for Animal Health director-general Monique Elliott said vaccinating poultry should be “on the table”.
After all, “everyone now knows that an epidemic is not just a fantasy — it can be a reality,” he added.
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