The H5N1 bird flu made the jump from a farm animal to a human for the third time last week. Meanwhile, a man in Mexico recently died after being the first known person to contract a different strain, H5N2. The virus is clearly adapting, which could be very bad news for us humans.
Dr. Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude's Children's Hospital, told KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman he’s “absolutely” concerned about the direction we’re headed in.
“I think this is still a virus that, given its preference, would like to be in birds, so it's certainly not well-adapted for infection and certainly not transmission in humans,” Webby said. “But the opportunities that we're giving this virus to change, whether that be just spreading in other mammalian hosts, or at least exposing people to this virus, all of those increase the chances that this virus will change and become less avian-like and more mammalian and more human-like.”
Webby said that global surveillance and sequencing technology developed during the COVID-19 pandemic has made us better prepared to tackle H5N1. But if the virus gets out of control, it has the potential to become an even worse pandemic than COVID-19.
“This is a flu virus, and flu viruses kill sort of somewhere in the vicinity of half a million people every year around the globe as they are. But this is a particular form of flu virus that has a unique ability to cause disease,” he said.
However, Webby noted that we do have existing antivirals and vaccines that work against the flu.
“I don't want to paint a rosy picture and say that, should this start spreading human to human tomorrow, we would have millions of doses ready to go the next day. That's not true,” he said. “But in terms of all the emerging infectious diseases, this particular virus we probably know the most about in terms of vaccines and antivirals.”
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
UC Davis released pre-print research Wednesday that confirmed the bird flu virus is showing greater adaptability in mammals, which could eventually lead to human-to-human transmission.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok
