The Bird Flu Outbreak Has Taken an Ominous Turn

At least 60 countries have recently experienced outbreaks of H5N1, according to the World Organization for Animal Health. H5N1 is named after two of her proteins found on the surface of the virus. This includes the United States, where 43 million egg-laying hens died from bird flu last year or were slaughtered to prevent the spread of the disease. These losses resulted in the loss of nearly one-third of the nation’s egg-laying flock.According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they slashed their egg supply so much that prices at the end of the year 210% higher Overall, the USDA Less than 58 million birds— mainly egg-laying hens, turkeys, and backyard poultry — will die or be killed in 2022, with another 500,000 so far this year.

The poultry industry is huge. The U.S. portion alone includes more than 9 billion edible chickens and he 216 million turkeys and he 325 million laying hens each year.the chicken is most consumed meat World wide. At this scale, it is difficult to put losses from avian flu into context. But the ongoing epidemic has become the worst animal disease outbreak in US history and the largest poultry outbreak ever recorded in the UK, Europe and Japan. stated that the damage to wild birds was devastating.

There may be little you can do to protect wild birds. Avian influenza is spread by seasonally migrating waterfowl that carry the virus unharmed. But the poultry industry relies on a complex set of behaviors and building functions, widely called biosecurity, developed or reinforced after a devastating epidemic that claimed the lives of more than 50 million birds in 2015. doing. Ask if biosecurity can be strengthened enough to eliminate bird flu, and if not, what must be changed to keep birds and humans safe.

“We know biosecurity works, but it’s a heroic endeavor and given the current style of building and the current workforce, it may not be sustainable,” said a veterinarian, Minnesota says Carol Cardona, professor of bird health at the University of Veterinary Medicine. “The reason I say it works is [highly pathogenic avian flu] In 2015 there were fewer cases in 2022. So they’ve learned some lessons and changed some things, but few have completely prevented it. ”

The constant attack of H5N1 is not only important for poultry and wildlife, but also for people. Bird flu has long been considered the animal disease most likely to evolve into a global human pandemic, and even after the onslaught of SARS-CoV-2, many scientists are still That’s how I feel.

The H5N1 subtype was first shed from birds to humans in 1997 in Hong Kong. Eighteen people fell ill, six of which he died. Although small, the mortality rate was 33% for him. Since then, H5N1 variants have regularly infected people, causing 868 cases and 457 deaths by 2022, according to the World Health Organization. These figures represent a mortality rate of 52%, but they also show that the virus was not adapted to spread easily from person to person and cause a large outbreak.

Yet scientists are constantly monitoring viruses to find situations that facilitate these adaptations.Example: Spanish and Italian scientists disclosed last month In October 2022, an H5N1 mutant was reported to have infected mink on fur farms in northwestern Spain. The virus may have been transmitted to a single mink by wild birds or through chicken carcasses used as fodder. However, once on the farm, it made subtle adaptations that allowed it to spread from one mink to another. .

Its occurrence was disturbing, more than once. Viruses began to adapt not only to mammals, but also to certain mammals that are directly related to humans. Minks belong to the same family as ferrets. develop symptoms Same progression as humans.

But there is a third reason why mink outbreaks are notable. This is so common in animal husbandry that it goes largely unnoticed. Spanish farms were no place for minks to gamble freely while raising furs. Instead, it was an intensive farm where animals were kept in cages. Most of the affected poultry farms in the United States are also intensive confinement farms, although meaning varies by bird species. A large metal barn for the broilers, a barn for laying eggs, possibly an indoor cage, and a coop with mesh curtains for the turkeys.

Operating in isolation doesn’t necessarily mean farms are vulnerable to infection, but once a virus enters the premises, confined so many animals can become infected at once. will be exposed to This puts many animals at risk. Some of the poultry farms wiped out by the flu last year lost more than 5 million birds.It also gives the virus a large host of mutations. If very large farms pose a risk of amplifying the virus, perhaps keeping them small should be part of virus defense.

“When there is public discussion about tackling zoonotic diseases, it quickly shifts to vaccination, preparedness and biosecurity, but no one discusses tackling root causes,” said a political economist. Yes, says Jan Datkiewicz, Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School. Law and Policy Clinic. “We don’t discuss cancer prevention with tobacco products without quitting smoking. But when it comes to zoonotic risk, we debate curbing animal production.” I am very passive about it.”

Considering what Americans ate, it might be an unthinkable proposition. An estimated 1.45 billion wings During last Sunday’s Super Bowl, and as a culture, we don’t tend to ask many questions about how food gets to our plates. Adam Scheingate, who studies agricultural policy, says that “industrial animal production works and may even depend on the distance between the consumer and the reality of industrial animal production and violence. ‘ said. “Most people don’t want to know how their food is made.” Still, he notes that other countries are quick to respond when the risks of food-borne illness become apparent. To do. For example, when Britain changed animal husbandry practices after Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, “mad cow disease.” In the mid-1990s he had 178 deaths.

“This is not to say that we will eliminate poultry,” says Andrew Decorolis, executive director of Farm Forward, a nonprofit that works to improve the welfare of farm animals. “That means we need to understand what the biggest risk factors are and perhaps legislate those changes. It may reduce the density of animals within.”

As terrifying as it is, it is possible to interpret the current outbreak as an opportunity to start gathering big data on what is making poultry production so vulnerable. and whether affected farms use specific feed and water systems, purchase hatchlings from specific breeding lines, or are located in specific locations, previously invisible. patterns may be revealed by the data. Underneath landscape features or identifiable bird migration routes. “Because the virus is probabilistic, there aren’t many studies that show what the absolute best his practices are. You don’t know exactly when you’re going to be infected,” said an associate veterinarian and epidemiologist. Professor Meghan his Davis says. at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

After the 2015 outbreak, it was the worst that poultry producers could imagine up to that point. The industry focused on identifying the human networks that made poultry farms vulnerable. Companies tried to control the ways in which visitors could be exposed to the virus without their knowledge. For example, they shared housing with workers from another facility, drove trucks from infected farms to clean farms, and carried potentially contaminated mail and mobile phones. The current extraordinary spread of H5N1 influenza to wild birds may mean that producers must also consider how the environment itself invites exposure. Wetlands attract ducks. Cops protect raptors that hunt rodents that scavenge for spilled grain. This is an approach that recognizes that biosecurity will never be perfect and that production systems will never be completely cut off from the world.