In 2023, another 14 countries reported outbreaks, mainly in the Americas, as the disease continues to spread. Last year, 67 countries in five continents reported highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu outbreaks, with more than 131 million domestic poultry lost due to death or culling in affected farms and villages. The virus spread to North America in 2021 and then to Central and South America in 2022. The WHO said that since 2020, a variant had led to an "unprecedented" number of deaths in wild birds and poultry in many countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. "This is especially important as the virus is now affecting countries with limited prior experience in avian-flu surveillance," Briand said. "The virus does not appear to be able to transmit from one person to another easily, but vigilance is needed to identify any evolution in the virus that can change that," said the WHO's pandemic preparedness chief Sylvie Briand.Įxperts were looking for changes that could be more dangerous to humans, and urged countries to boost their monitoring capabilities, she added. Human bird flu cases are usually the result of direct or indirect exposure to infected live or dead poultry or contaminated environments. Infections in humans can cause severe disease with a high mortality rate. "There is a recent paradigm change in the ecology and epidemiology of avian influenza which has heightened global concern as the disease spread to new geographical regions and caused unusual wild bird die-offs, and alarming rise in mammalian cases," said WOAH science chief Gregorio Torres. The WHO, along with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), urged countries to work together to save animals and protect people. H5N1 was recently detected in cats in Poland. Outbreaks have been reported in 26 species, including farmed mink in Spain and sealions in Chile. "In addition, some mammals may act as mixing vessels for influenza viruses, leading to the emergence of new viruses that could be more harmful to animals and humans."
"Avian influenza viruses normally spread among birds, but the increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza detections among mammals-which are biologically closer to humans than birds are-raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily," the WHO said in a statement. This has led to the culling of tens of millions of poultry worldwide, many with the H5N1 strain of the virus, which first emerged in 1996.īut there has recently been a worrying spike in infections in mammals. Since late 2021, Europe has been gripped by its worst-ever outbreak of bird flu, while North and South America have also experienced severe outbreaks.
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