DR. JENNIFER NUZZO: H5N1 isn’t easily infecting human YET

By Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo For Dailymail.Com 18:39 08 March 2023, Updated 19:54 08 March 2023

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo is Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health

Tens of thousands of birds die suddenly in coastal Peru and across the Americas.

Then hundreds of sea lions turn up dead. And tragically, an 11-year-old girl dies in Cambodia.

What is the cause of all these recent unusual events?

A highly pathogenic virus known as H5N1 – bird flu.

Thankfully, H5N1 is not yet able to spread between people like the flu viruses we’re used to fighting in North America during the fall and winter.

Although the applicable word is ‘still’.

Waterfowl are natural carriers of these dangerous viral strains. And in most cases, they do not pose a threat to humans, unless there is direct contact with infected animals or their waste.

Avian influenza viruses do not readily bind to human respiratory cells. Therefore, the disease is not easily transmitted from one person to another through coughing, sneezing or respiratory droplets.

But H5N1’s increasing ability to spread among animals and directly infect humans is raising fears that the world may be just a few genetic mutations away from another pandemic.

And there are good reasons to worry.

As of 2022, in the United States alone, a record 58 million farm birds, such as chickens and turkeys, have been killed or killed after exposure to the virus.

Tens of thousands of birds die suddenly in coastal Peru and across the Americas. (Above) Municipal workers pick up dead pelicans at Santa Maria Beach in Lima, Peru, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2022. Hundreds of sea lions later turn up dead. And tragically, an 11-year-old girl dies in Cambodia. (Above) Bean Narong died of bird flu on February 22 after falling ill a week earlier

The virus has also spread to red foxes, mink, raccoons, skunks and other non-human mammals in the Northwest, Midwest and Northeast.

In fact, different forms of H5N1 have been circulating in wildlife populations for more than 20 years, and they are disgusting.

H5N1 has wiped out entire herds and devastated wildlife populations. Hundreds of people have become ill since the virus was first identified in 1997. And among those known to have contracted the virus, about half have died.

This makes H5N1 much more deadly than COVID-19.

What we don’t know is how deadly the virus would be if it acquired the ability to easily infect and transmit between humans.

Whenever a virus invades a cell, it makes copies of itself. Sometimes in the process he makes a mistake – a mutation. The mutations may not result in any change in the way the virus can infect or make you sick. But as we’ve seen with the Delta and Omicron variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, sometimes these mutations can make the virus more transmissible.

And we know enough to want to act quickly to prevent that from happening.

H5N1 is not the first zoonotic virus – a pathogen that originates in wildlife and spills over into human populations – to pose a serious threat.

The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which has killed more than 40 million people and counting, first appeared in wildlife. The virus likely infected human populations many times before gaining the ability to spread and move around the world.

Since the emergence of HIV, there have been many more animal viruses that have acquired the ability to infect humans.

In the last twenty or so years, the list of zoonotic disease outbreaks that have occurred is staggering. The list includes Ebola, West Nile Virus, Mpox, the 2009 pandemic flu, and two new coronaviruses that predate the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Zoonotic diseases are thought to kill more than 2.7 million people across the globe each year.

This is surprising.

And if that’s not worrying enough, we’re likely not ready for the future.

The virus has also spread to red foxes, mink, raccoons, skunks and other non-human mammals in the Northwest, Midwest and Northeast.

The constant drumbeat of these events signals to us that the accelerated emergence of new zoonotic diseases is the new normal.

Since the 1940s and 1950s when HIV may have first passed from chimpanzees to humans, the frequency of zoonotic disease outbreaks has steadily increased.

By the end of the 20th century, the number of new infectious disease outbreaks was more than five times what was occurring in the 1940s—not all are zoonotic, but most are.

And surprisingly, more than two-thirds of all human outbreaks of new diseases are caused by zoonotic pathogens

There are many possible reasons for this.

In North America and around the world, human land use is constantly expanding. We are putting new stresses on wildlife populations, increasing their likelihood of becoming ill and contracting new diseases. Climate change is altering natural environments adding strain.

The animals themselves are migrating to new regions, creating new opportunities for them to come into contact with humans, thus spreading new viruses. And repeated exposure to humans creates more opportunities for diseases to mutate.

While all viruses are different, it would be foolish to ignore that the conditions that may have led to the HIV epidemic are magnified today.

If these viruses become easily transmissible between humans, our modern behavior helps them spread. We are more mobile than ever before – every destination on the planet is reachable within 48 hours.

Finally, as bad as H5N1 bird flu is, it may not be the worst zoonotic disease threat we face.

The United States has been preparing for a possible H5N1 pandemic for about 20 years. It has laboratories that can detect bird flu and has stockpiled millions of doses of H5N1 vaccines.

Thanks to a seasonal flu vaccine market, there is already a global infrastructure for producing vaccines for new flu viruses. The US even has a secret supply of eggs to grow new flu vaccines if needed.

But as COVID-19 has shown us, when an entirely new virus emerges and spreads, it is much more difficult to respond to it. If a new zoonotic disease emerged, we would not have ready access to the same tools we now use to fight influenza or COVID-19.

Without vaccines or drugs to prevent or treat infections, we are left with masks and social distancing to improve the spread.

The United States has been preparing for a possible H5N1 pandemic for about 20 years. It has laboratories that can detect bird flu and has stockpiled millions of doses of H5N1 vaccines. As of 2022, in the United States alone, a record 58 million farm birds, such as chickens and turkeys, have been killed or killed after exposure to the virus.

We need new tools and strategies to protect ourselves from contagious, zoonotic pathogens that don’t rely solely on our willingness to shut down society and lock ourselves inside our homes. Forcing businesses and schools to close represents a failure to prepare.

We cannot allow zoonotic diseases like H5N1 to spread unchecked or else they may mutate to become a greater threat to humans.

The Biden administration is right to consider vaccinating American birds against H5N1, but it is not enough.

This may protect US agricultural interests, but it will not prevent the virus from infecting wildlife or mutating to infect humans more easily.

We must do more.

Ensuring that our schools and businesses are well ventilated will not only reduce our vulnerability to future zoonotic threats, but will make us safer from other viruses, such as seasonal flu.

We don’t have to wait until our worst case scenario is realized to start researching and developing new vaccines, rapid tests and medicines.

The World Health Organization recently called on governments to invest in the development of prototype vaccines for each type of animal flu so they can be evaluated and produced more quickly.

We need better surveillance of emerging wildlife viruses and of people who are exposed to high-risk animals.

After three years of responding to COVID-19, the public and, more importantly, politicians may have little will to do what it takes to prevent a new virus from upending our lives.

Funding for the response to COVID-19 has expired. Millions of health care workers have left their positions, leaving our fragmented and weakened pandemic health care entities further impoverished. Efforts to develop new and improved vaccines for COVID-19 have stalled.

None of this bodes well for our preparedness for the next pandemic.

We don’t know when it might happen or what disease it will be, but we have every reason to believe it will be a zoonotic disease, and perhaps one we haven’t seen before.