BIRD FLU – hatching a pandemic V
BY DR JUSTINE BUTLER, HEAD OF RESEARCH, VIVA!
iva! have launched a new campaign highlighting the deadly risk avian influenza (bird flu) poses to human health and how this risk can be mitigated. The global spread of bird flu is considered a significant pandemic threat by experts and although it mainly affects birds, several strains have infected people, including H5N1 and H5N8. Globally, there have been over 15,000 H5N1 outbreaks in domestic bird flocks, killing tens of millions of them, while hundreds of millions of others have been killed to try and prevent the disease from spreading. Last winter in the UK, H5N1 was reported from 116 premises, over four times the number reporting H5N8 in the previous winter. Strict biosecurity measures, lockdowns and avian influenza prevention zones have failed despite all captive birds, including free-range, having been ordered indoors. Bird flu continues to spread. The poultry industry likes to blame the spread of bird flu on migratory birds when the real problem is factory farming. Wild birds may contribute at a local level but poultry farming is a major factor in bird flu’s global spread. Clusters of outbreaks in high density poultry farming indicate a likely failure of biosecurity measures and show how easily bird flu spreads. Factory farms, housing tens of thousands of birds, provide the ideal breeding ground for viruses to mutate and spread. Juliet Gellatley, founder and international director of Viva! says: “Viva! have been into these hellholes and exposed the horrific conditions birds are forced to endure. Over one billion chickens are slaughtered for their meat in the UK every year and around 95 per cent are factory farmed. With 24 billion chickens in the world, we are giving bird flu every chance to mutate and become infectious to humans.” In January 2022, the UK Health Security Agency confirmed the first human case of H5N1 in the UK (and Europe). It likely came from close contact with H5N1 infected ducks kept in and around the person’s home. There have been 863 human cases of H5N1 in people, 456 of which have died – mostly teenagers and young adults – a death rate higher than 50 per cent! Most of them had handled dead or diseased birds. So far, H5N1 does not spread easily between humans but as we’ve seen with Covid, viruses mutate and can become more easily transmissible. Flu viruses are especially prone to this and mutations occur frequently. Scientists warn that H5N1 may be just three mutations away from becoming transmissible, person to person. Writing in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, scientists said: “If this virus acquires human-to-
The resulting pandemic would be akin to a global tsunami human transmissibility with its present fatality rate of 50 per cent, the resulting pandemic would be akin to a global tsunami. If it killed those infected at even a fraction of this rate, the results would be catastrophic.” To learn more about the campaign visit viva.org.uk/birdflu and share on social media, watch the video and order campaign leaflets to door drop. Together, we need to end factory farming before it ends us!
viva.org.uk 35
