Why bird flu could be the biggest health problem in 2025

Covid appeared suddenly, spread rapidly and killed millions of people around the world. Since then, it’s fair to say that most people are worried about the emergence of the next big infectious disease: either that a virus, bacteria, fungus or parasite.

With Covid Taking a back seat (thanks to highly effective vaccines), the three infectious diseases that public health officials are most concerned about are malaria (a parasite), HIV (a virus), and tuberculosis (a bacteria). Between them, they kill
around two million people each year.

And then there are the watchlists of priority pathogens – particularly those that have become resistant to the drugs usually used to treat them, like
antibiotics and antivirals.

Scientists must also constantly scan the horizon for the next potential problem. Although it can come from any form of pathogen, certain groups are more likely than others to cause rapid outbreaks. and this includes influenza virus.

Flu virus raises serious concerns right away and is poised to become a serious problem in 2025. This is influenza A subtype H5N1, sometimes named “bird flu”. This virus is widely distributed in both wild and domestic birds, such as poultry. Recently, it has also infected dairy cattle.
in several American states and is located in
horses in Mongolia.

When flu cases start to increase in animals like birds, there is always concern that it can jump to humans. Indeed, bird flu can infect humans
61 cases in the United States This year Alreadyprimarily resulting from contact of farmworkers with infected livestock and people
drink raw milk.

Compared with only two cases in the Americas in the previous two yearsThat’s a pretty significant increase.. By coupling this with a
30 percent mortality rate from human infectionsAvian flu is quickly climbing the priority list of public health officials.

Fortunately, H5N1 avian flu does not appear to be transmitted from person to person, which considerably reduces its likelihood of causing a pandemic in humans. Influenza viruses must attach to molecular structures called sialic receptors on the outside of cells. For go in and start fighting back.

Influenza viruses, which are very adapted to humans, recognize these sialic receptors very well, which allows them to easily penetrate inside our cells, which contributes to their spread between humans. Avian influenza, on the other hand, is highly adapted to bird sialic receptors and exhibits some disparities when it “binds” (attaches) to human receptors. So, in its current form, H5N1 cannot spread easily among humans.

However, a recent study showed that a single mutation in the flu genome could make H5N1 able to spread.
human to humanwhich could trigger a pandemic.

If this strain of bird flu makes this change and can begin to transmit between humans, governments must act quickly to control the spread. Centers for Disease Control around the world have developed
pandemic preparedness plans for bird flu and other diseases looming on the horizon.

For example, the UK purchased 5 million doses of the H5 vaccine that can
protect yourself against bird fluin preparation for this risk in 2025.

Even without the potential for human-to-human spread, avian flu is likely to further affect animal health in 2025. This not only has important animal welfare implications, but also the potential to disrupt the food supply and also have economic effects.

Everything is connected

This work all falls under the aegis of
“one health”: looking human, animal and environmental health as interconnected entitiesall with the same importance and the same influence on each other.

By understanding and preventing diseases in our environment and in the animals around us, we can better prepare and fight these diseases entering humans. Likewise, by monitoring and eliminating infectious diseases in humans, we can protect our animals and the health of the environment too.

However, we must not forget the “slow pandemics” that continue to plague humans, such as malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and other pathogens. It is essential to combat them, while scanning the horizon for new diseases that could arise.

Conor Meehan, Associate Professor of Microbial Bioinformatics, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.