Bird Flu Pandemic Is a Ticking Time Bomb

(CTN News) – The Irish and UK governments have issued a directive instructing all farmers to keep their Bird Flu indoors to prevent the spread of avian flu, or the H5N1 virus.

As a result of this measure, tens of millions of chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys will have to be brought inside for the immediate future. This is in order to prevent infection from wild birds.

Also, island birds have been affected, causing the Isle of May in Scotland to be closed to human visitors for five weeks.

In the case of avian influenza, the R number can be as high as 100, which means that one bird can infect as many as 100 others.

The last few months have witnessed the exponential spread of the virus, with Europe being particularly hard hit. Over the past three months, a laboratory in Surrey, United Kingdom, has seen a 600% increase in cases.

Is this outbreak causing concern not only among scientists but also among poultry farmers and government officials? There have been very few outbreaks of avian flu in humans in recent years due to the fact that the virus does not transfer between humans. There is, however, a ticking time bomb here.

The more likely it is that a dangerous strain of the virus will emerge as a result of the virus jumping into a human. This will enable it to mutate. The more likely it is that the next pandemic could be sparked by such a strain.

The bird flu virus is highly infectious and poses a high risk to chickens and turkeys. Therefore, if a farm tests positive for bird flu, the entire flock is culled. There can be a significant loss of income for poultry farms as a result of this, resulting in hundreds of thousands to millions of euros of lost income.

This virus does not have a mild form. There is an estimated 60% fatality rate for H5N1 in humans, according to the World Health Organization. The seasonal Bird Flu vaccine does not protect against avian influenza at this time, nor do we have a vaccine for use in humans.

In spite of the possibility of human transmission, the Bird Flu virus is already affecting people’s livelihoods and farms. It also poses a threat to hundreds of millions of domestic and wild birds.

Chicken outbreaks have the potential to wipe out the entire local chicken population; however, in other birds, such as ducks and geese, the disease is often mild or even asymptomatic.

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