Scientists have warned that a bird flu outbreak spreading throughout the United States is “wiping out everything in numbers we’ve never seen before.”
The country has already suffered from the H5N8 virus, which resulted in the culling of 50 million poultry birds in 2015.
However, when the more contagious H5N1 virus spreads through the wild bird population, it is causing new issues.
It killed tens of thousands of wild birds between late 2021 and October of last year, most notably colonial nesting birds, seabirds, and raptors.
As a result, more than 58 million chicken in the United States were infected or had to be killed, with more than seven million in Canada.
The outbreak, according to University of Maryland Professor Jennifer Mullinax, was “unprecedented.”
She highlighted her university’s results as a “call to arms” for government agencies and the agricultural industry to act, based on data from the present US outbreak and global incidence from 2014 to early 2023.
“We’re going to have to deal with this as a group because we can’t afford not to,” she said.
Disease could become endemic.
Data analysed by Professor Mullinax’s team demonstrated that avian flu had become an all-year illness.
Historically, epidemics have happened in the autumn and winter, providing farmers time to prepare.
The study, published in the journal Conservation Biology, argues that the United States should regard bird flu as endemic rather than eradicable.
It comes after the World Health Organisation (WHO) cautioned people to be cautious about the possibility of bird flu spreading from wildlife to humans.
Human infections have been rare since H5N1 first surfaced in 1996, but the disease has recently infected wildlife such as bears, dolphins, and cats.
The instances, according to WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “need to be closely monitored.”
“We must be prepared for any change in the status quo,” he said.
After more than four months, the UK dropped bird flu precautions this week.
Farmers are now required by law to keep their livestock indoors and adhere to rigorous biosecurity procedures.
