{"id":9080,"date":"2025-04-01T17:30:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T22:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=9080"},"modified":"2025-04-01T17:30:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T22:30:56","slug":"bird-flu-could-be-on-the-cusp-of-transmitting-between-humans-%e2%88%92-but-there-are-ways-to-slow-down-viral-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/04\/01\/bird-flu-could-be-on-the-cusp-of-transmitting-between-humans-%e2%88%92-but-there-are-ways-to-slow-down-viral-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu could be on the cusp of transmitting between humans \u2212 but there are ways to slow down viral\u00a0evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/bird-flu-could-be-on-the-cusp-of-transmitting-between-humans-but-there-are-ways-to-slow-down-viral-evolution-250232\">The Conversation<\/a> Disease forecasts are like weather forecasts: We cannot predict the finer details of a particular outbreak or a particular storm, but we can often identify when these threats are emerging and prepare accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The viruses that cause avian influenza are potential threats to global health.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/publications\/m\/item\/updated-joint-fao-who-woah-assessment-of-recent-influenza-a(h5n1)-virus-events-in-animals-and-people_dec2024\">Recent animal outbreaks<\/a>&nbsp;from a subtype called H5N1 have been especially troubling to scientists. Although human infections from H5N1 have been relatively rare, there have been a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.who.int\/media\/docs\/default-source\/2021-dha-docs\/cumulative-number-of-confirmed-human-cases-for-avian-influenza-a(h5n1)-reported-to-who--2003-2025.pdf\">little more than 900 known cases globally<\/a>&nbsp;since 2003 \u2013&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1056\/NEJMe2416323\">nearly 50% of these cases have been fatal<\/a>&nbsp;\u2013 a mortality rate about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/jech.2007.064030\">20 times higher<\/a>&nbsp;than that of the 1918 flu pandemic. If the worst of these rare infections ever became common among people, the results could be devastating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Approaching potential disease threats from an anthropological perspective, my colleagues\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Ron-Barrett-2\">and I<\/a>\u00a0recently published a book called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/global.oup.com\/academic\/product\/emerging-infections-9780192843135\">Emerging Infections: Three Epidemiological Transitions from Prehistory to the Present<\/a>\u201d to examine the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/future-pandemics-will-have-the-same-human-causes-as-ancient-outbreaks-lessons-from-anthropology-can-help-prevent-them-224622\">ways human behaviors have shaped<\/a>\u00a0the evolution of infectious diseases, beginning with their first major emergence in the Neolithic period and continuing for 10,000 years to the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/bird-flu-could-be-on-the-cusp-of-transmitting-between-humans-but-there-are-ways-to-slow-down-viral-evolution-250232\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation Disease forecasts are like weather forecasts: We cannot predict the finer details of a particular outbreak or a particular storm, but we can often identify when these threats are emerging and prepare accordingly. The viruses that cause avian influenza are potential threats to global health.&nbsp;Recent animal outbreaks&nbsp;from a subtype called H5N1 have been [&hellip;]<\/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":[37,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza","category-featured-headlines"],"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\/9080","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=9080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9081,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9080\/revisions\/9081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}