{"id":4140,"date":"2023-07-18T19:24:13","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T00:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2023-07-18T19:28:45","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T00:28:45","slug":"yes-bird-flu-is-a-threat-its-time-to-take-it-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/07\/18\/yes-bird-flu-is-a-threat-its-time-to-take-it-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, bird flu is a threat. It\u2019s time to take it seriously."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science\/23793697\/bird-flu-avian-influenza-explained-pandemic-potential-wildlife\">Vox<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"iGjvI1\">In the last two years, more than half a billion birds have died globally. The cause isn\u2019t deforestation or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/climate\">climate change<\/a>&nbsp;or the destruction of grasslands \u2014 all of which are contributing to the precipitous decline of wild birds \u2014 but&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science\/23709615\/avian-influenza-h5n1-wild-birds\">avian influenza, i.e., bird flu<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"QuPKvr\">The majority of these birds were farmed chickens and turkeys; as the virus, known as H5N1, began circulating among poultry flocks in the US, Europe, and elsewhere, farmers started culling a record number of birds to stop the pathogen from spreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"QIoW3o\">Yet what\u2019s unusual about this virus is that it\u2019s also been spreading rapidly among wild birds and even mammals, such as mink and sea lions, often causing severe infection or death. This raises a red flag among health officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"BeiMkS\">\u201cThe increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza detections among mammals \u2014 which are biologically closer to humans than birds are \u2014 raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily,\u201d three United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organization,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news\/item\/12-07-2023-ongoing-avian-influenza-outbreaks-in-animals-pose-risk-to-humans\">warned<\/a>\u00a0in a recent statement. \u201cThese outbreaks pose ongoing risks to humans.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"2sETLo\">The risk of humans contracting bird flu is still incredibly low,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/wwwnc.cdc.gov\/eid\/article\/29\/6\/23-0103_article\">new research shows<\/a>, and the virus does not have the biological machinery to cause a pandemic (unlike&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/coronavirus-covid19\">the SARS-CoV-2 virus<\/a>, which is great at spreading among humans). But the more this pathogen spreads, especially among mammals, the more opportunities it has to evolve traits that make it dangerous. That\u2019s why scientists are taking it so seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science\/23793697\/bird-flu-avian-influenza-explained-pandemic-potential-wildlife\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vox In the last two years, more than half a billion birds have died globally. The cause isn\u2019t deforestation or&nbsp;climate change&nbsp;or the destruction of grasslands \u2014 all of which are contributing to the precipitous decline of wild birds \u2014 but&nbsp;avian influenza, i.e., bird flu. The majority of these birds were farmed chickens and turkeys; as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Screenshot-2023-07-18-at-20.23.34.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4142,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions\/4142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}