Bird flu updates

I’m tired: Kelley has ‘walking’ pneumonia and I think I’ve been fighting it off; one of my friends is dying; and I just had the worst eye haemorrhage I’ve had in ten years—it hurts, and it makes me feel terrible every time I look in the mirror. Plus, y’know, the emotional drain of the election. So this report is less sharp, and much less well-cited than usual (but it’s all easy enough to look up if you’re interested).

Biggest news A pig on a small farm in Oregon has been confirmed to have been infected with—not just contaminated by—the same strain of H5N1 highly-pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu) as found in the farm’s infected chickens.This, like the recent news about the virus being able to spread via droplets between ferrets (though not efficiently), is not good. Pigs are an ideal recombination chamber for bird flu and human flu because the cell membranes in pig airways offer a particularly convenient route for the cell to be infected by both kinds of virus at the same time. (Human infection from animal sources seems so far to be via fomites—touching contaminated things.)if this happens at the same time, it leads to a hugely increased risk of recombinationrecombination is how viruses randomly mutate, increasing the possibility of finding a way to lead to human-to-human transmission via respiratory droplets—as human flu does nowA preprint went up on MedRxiv about tracking the emergence of a novel H5N1 flu reassortant in Cambodia Bird flu (this time H5N5) has now been detected in a commercial chicken farm in Hornsea (East Yorkshire, UK).DEFRA in the UK has raised its H5 risk level from medium to high.The usual news more and more flocks (in 48 states) and herds (14 states) are being infected in the USmore and more people (46) who work with those animals in the US confirmed to be infectedall but one of those confirmed to be infected by cows or chickens (the outlier is the person from Missouri)wastewater sampling continues to show low levels of H5N1 in various places (but we still don’t really know what that means)The biggest questions

These haven’t changed. I still want to know why there is no

mandatory testing of herds and flocks? (Though the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service just announced “a tiered strategy to collect milk samples to better assess where H5N1 is present proactively support effective biosecurity measures and to help state minimize the risk to farm workers.” Whatever that means.)moratorium on movement of non-tested livestock?mandatory vaccination of front-line agricultural workers?increase in vaccine and antiviral production?Reasons to stay calmMany flu antivirals appear to work well against H5N1Like many respiratory viruses, wearing a good mask, washing hands, and using high-quality air filtration largely prevent infectionAs do vaccines—which we have, though not a huge stockpileAs long as you pay attention, the risk right now is very low

Basically: watch, wait, don’t worry. Do pay attention. Just like like time.

Why I’m doing this

So why, if we don’t need to worry, am I following this and sharing it? Two reasons. One, this kind of stuff interests me—all parts of it: the biology, the epidemiology, the cultural response, political response, and informational approach; everything. And two, while I’m a big fan of Science, a big fan of information, a big fan of public health, I’ve also observed many (many) mistakes made over the last few years when it comes to communicating what I think is the right level of information and/or recommendations. And my guess is, if I’d rather collate my own info and assess my own risk than rely on organisations that can be politically pressured, then, hey, others might find it useful, too.

However, I understand some of you may feel different. So if you subscribe to this blog but find this stuff tedious and are not interested, please let me know in the comments and I’ll figure out some way to thread that needle.