Pandemic experts voice concern over the spread of avian influenza to humans

The ongoing world spread of “fowl flu” infections to mammals, together with humans, is a big public well being concern, senior UN medics stated on Thursday, as they introduced new measures to sort out airborne illnesses.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), stated that the avian influenza virus, also called H5N1, has had an “extraordinarily excessive” mortality fee amongst the a number of hundred individuals identified to have been contaminated with it to date.

So far, no human-to-human H5N1 transmission has been recorded.

“H5N1 is (an) influenza an infection, predominantly began in poultry and geese and has spread successfully over the course of the final one or two years to turn into a world zoonotic – animal – pandemic,” he stated.

“The nice concern, of course, is that in doing so and infecting geese and chickens – however now more and more mammals – that that virus now evolves and develops the skill to infect humans. And then critically, the skill to go from human-to-human transmission.”

Cattle thriller

Commenting on an ongoing outbreak of H5N1 virus amongst dairy cows in the United States, the WHO senior official urged additional shut monitoring and investigation by public well being authorities, “as a result of it might evolve into transmitting in numerous methods”.

He added: “Do the milking constructions of cows create aerosols? Is it the atmosphere which they’re residing in? Is it the transport system that’s spreading this round the nation? This is a large concern and I feel we’ve to … be sure that if H5N1 did come throughout to humans with human-to-human transmission, that we had been able to instantly reply with entry equitably to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.”

Equal to subsequent pandemic

The growth comes as the WHO introduced up to date language to describe airborne pathogens, in a bid to enhance worldwide cooperation in the occasion of a brand new, and anticipated, world pandemic.

The initiative was initially sparked by the COVID-19 emergency and the recognition that there was a scarcity of generally agreed phrases amongst medics and scientists to describe how the coronavirus was transmitted, which elevated the problem of overcoming it, Dr Farrar defined.

Global attraction

To counter this, the WHO led consultations with 4 main public well being companies from Africa, China, Europe and the United States, earlier than asserting settlement on a quantity of agreed new phrases. These embody “infectious respiratory particles” or “IRPs”, which must be used as an alternative of “aerosols” and “droplets”, to keep away from any confusion about the measurement of the particles concerned.

Over and above the new terminology, the initiative cements the dedication of the worldwide group to sort out ever “extra complicated and extra frequent epidemics and pandemics”, Dr Farrar informed journalists in Geneva.

“It’s a massively vital first step. But subsequent, we’d like to preserve the disciplines, the experts collectively.

“We’re utilizing the similar terminology, the similar language, and now we’d like to do the science that gives the proof on tuberculosis, on COVID and different respiratory pathogens, in order that we all know how to management these infections higher than we’ve carried out in the previous.”

On the potential HN51 public well being threat, the WHO Chief Scientist cautioned that vaccine growth was not “the place we’d like to be”. Neither was it the case that regional places of work and nation places of work and public well being authorities round the world have the functionality to diagnose H5N1, he famous.