https://www.who.int/news/item/12-07-2023-ongoing-avian-influenza-outbreaks-in-animals-pose-risk-to-humans
12 July 2023
The current outbreaks of avian influenza (also called “bird flu”) have caused devastation in animal populations, including poultry, wild birds, and some mammals, and harmed farmers’ livelihoods and the food trade. Although largely affecting animals, these outbreaks pose
ongoing risks to humans. [This harmed farmers because one positive test means all the birds must be culled—even though a cooked bird does not transmit virus, and even if they did, the virus has mutated and is no longer harmful to humans.—Nass]
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) are urging countries to work together across sectors to
save as many animals as possible and to protect people. [This means vaccinate as many as possible and cull as many as possible.]
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. 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.
The goose/Guangdong-lineage of H5N1 avian influenza viruses first emerged in 1996 and have been causing outbreaks in birds since then. Since 2020, a variant of these viruses belonging to the H5 clade 2.3.4.4b has led to an
unprecedented number of deaths in wild birds and poultry [due to culling of over 100 million] in many countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. In 2021, the virus spread to North America, and in 2022, to Central and South America.
In 2022, 67 countries in five continents reported H5N1
high pathogenicity [that is the name, but it is often non-pathogenic to birds and non-pathogenic to humans] avian influenza outbreaks in poultry and wild birds to WOAH, with
more than 131 million domestic poultry lost due to death or culling in affected farms and villages. In 2023, another 14 countries reported outbreaks, mainly in the Americas, as the disease continues to spread. Several mass death events have been reported in wild birds, caused by influenza A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b viruses.