{"id":7170,"date":"2024-07-24T12:40:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T17:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=7170"},"modified":"2024-07-24T12:40:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T17:40:44","slug":"what-to-know-about-bird-flu-and-fears-of-a-new-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/07\/24\/what-to-know-about-bird-flu-and-fears-of-a-new-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Know About Bird Flu and Fears of a New Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bloomberg<\/a> For influenza viruses, imperfection is a strength. They constantly mutate, producing new strains that challenge immune systems primed to fight earlier varieties. That\u2019s what makes flu a life-long threat to humans and the animal species \u2014 mainly birds \u2014 that are vulnerable to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2020, a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza called H5N1 has been decimating<\/a> both wild and domestic birds. Now it\u2019s spreading among US dairy cows, and has infected US farmworkers exposed to sick cattle and poultry. A man in Mexico died<\/a> with a strain of bird flu, H5N2, that hasn\u2019t been seen in humans before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> and the World Heath Organization say the overall risk to the general public remains low, but public-health officials remain on alert for any indication of the most feared outcome: human-to-human transmission that could trigger a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. When did H5N1 begin spreading?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The H5N1 strain was first discovered in 1996 in geese bred in southern China. It\u2019s proved to be\u00a0alarmingly adept<\/a>\u00a0at jumping continents and species and has rampaged through captive, commercial birds across the globe; governments ordered millions of birds slaughtered to limit the contagion. A variant that emerged in 2020, clade 2.3.4.4b, led to infections in mammals like farmed mink in Spain and Peruvian sea lions. The same strain is ripping through wild birds and poultry in the US and has gained a foothold among dairy cows, with cases popping up among people who work with sick animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg For influenza viruses, imperfection is a strength. They constantly mutate, producing new strains that challenge immune systems primed to fight earlier varieties. That\u2019s what makes flu a life-long threat to humans and the animal species \u2014 mainly birds \u2014 that are vulnerable to it. Since 2020, a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"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-7170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7170","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=7170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7171,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7170\/revisions\/7171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}