Infection Control Today During the August 2025 Health Watch USA(sm) webinar entitled “Combating Infectious Disease Challenges,” several lectures were devoted to the then-outdated topic of H5N1 or the bird flu. Many people in the public, including those on social media, attributed the disappearance of the bird flu over the summer months to the implementation of effective suppression strategies. A past threat that was now long gone. I am afraid what we observed was just the normal disappearance of influenza during the summer months, as we have seen with the seasonal flu for decades.
On October 24th, Reuters reported bird flu outbreaks in several European countries that are at the highest level in decades, raising fears of renewed culling of millions of birds. Countries, along with the World Health Organization (WHO), are monitoring the situation. France is taking action by beginning its third annual bird flu vaccination campaign, starting with farm ducks, and Belgium has isolated poultry flocks.