Bird flu risk to humans an ‘enormous concern,’ says WHO; all you must know

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the alarm about the spread of the avian influenza virus, also known as H5N1. Dr Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist at the WHO, said that the virus has an extremely high mortality rate among humans already infected with it. Though there are no reports of human-to-human transmission to date, the virus has already affected several hundreds of people.

Dr Jeremy said that the H5N1 virus predominantly infected poultry animals and ducks but over the timespan of one or two years the influenza infection has become an animal pandemic. He said, “This is of great concern. Earlier the virus affected ducks and chickens then it started affecting mammals and now the virus has evolved and developed the ability to infect humans. The virus may soon develop the ability to transmit from one human to another.”

Outbreak of H5N1 virus among dairy cows

As the United States is currently facing an outbreak of the H5N1 virus among dairy cows, the senior WHO official requested the public health authorities to closely monitor the dairy cows as the virus may develop the ability to transmit in different ways. He stated that it was very important to find out how the virus was spreading among the animals, which is still a mystery. Dr Jeremy said, “We have to make sure that the H5N1 does not come across humans as it can easily develop the ability to transmit between humans. We have to be ready to respond immediately with vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.” Global steps to prevent the outbreak of the virus

This development comes as WHO announced that it has updated language to describe airborne pathogens in a bid to increase global cooperation if another unexpected global pandemic takes place. This initiative was taken up after the COVID-19 pandemic as there were no common terms among the medics and scientists from different parts of the country.

To bridge the gap between the public health agencies of different countries, WHO held talks with four major public health agencies from Africa, China, Europe and the United States before announcing the agreement.

“The initiative will strengthen the commitment of the international community to tackle more complex and more frequent epidemics and pandemics,” Dr Farrar told journalists in Geneva.

He added that with the same terminologies, it will be easier for experts to understand the symptoms and tackle the issues.

Commenting on the risk of the HN51 virus the WHO expert stated that the vaccine was still in the development stage and none of the health centres and authorities around the world is ready to provide a proper diagnosis if the outbreak takes place.