I’ve been watching the H5N1 hen flu for a really very long time. Lots of my readers don’t even know this, however a few years in the past I truly had a complete web site that was devoted to monitoring the newest information relating to hen flu. Thankfully, H5N1 hasn’t been a major risk for ages, however now it’s again. It’s spreading very quickly in birds in North America proper now, and a few consultants are involved that it may mutate right into a model that would start spreading simply in people. If that occurs, it will make the COVID pandemic seem like a nasty joke as compared, as a result of the loss of life fee for H5N1 in people is extraordinarily excessive.
Over the previous a number of days, we now have acquired some actually troubling information in regards to the unfold of hen flu inside america.
For instance, hen flu has now been detected in a “non-commercial yard flock” in Suffolk County, New York. The next comes from the official USDA web site…
The US Division of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of extremely pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a non-commercial yard flock (non-poultry) in Suffolk County, New York.
Samples from the flock have been examined on the Cornell College Animal Well being Diagnostic Heart, a part of the Nationwide Animal Well being Laboratory Community, and confirmed on the APHIS Nationwide Veterinary Providers Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa.
APHIS is working intently with state animal well being officers in New York on a joint incident response. State officers quarantined the affected premises, and birds on the properties shall be depopulated to stop the unfold of the illness. Birds from the flock won’t enter the meals system.
And the USDA can also be telling us that hen flu has additionally popped up within the state of Maine for the primary time…
Inspectors with a U.S. Division of Agriculture service have confirmed the presence of the avian influenza in what they describe as a “non-commercial yard flock (non-poultry)” in Knox County.
Officers with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service (APHIS) are actually working with Maine animal well being officers to quarantine the affected property.
As well as, we now have simply discovered that “a fourth industrial poultry flock in southern Indiana” has been hit…
Avian influenza has been detected in a fourth industrial poultry flock in southern Indiana, state officers stated Saturday.
Laboratory testing of a second industrial flock of turkeys in Greene County has come again as presumptively constructive for the virus, the Indiana State Board of Animal Well being stated. The samples are being verified on the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Nationwide Veterinary Providers Laboratory in Iowa.
Authorities are doing their finest to attempt to stop this outbreak from spreading, however it’s clearly uncontrolled at this level.
Up to now, hen flu has truly been detected in wild birds in a complete of 9 completely different states…
As of Saturday, over 240 wild birds in South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware and Florida had been discovered to be contaminated with Eurasian H5 HPAI, with a lot of instances specified as H5N1.
Poultry farmers are on excessive alert everywhere in the nation, as a result of a single case can typically imply that a complete flock have to be put down.
And the extra we lose, the upper hen costs will go.
However of a lot larger concern is the chance that the virus may mutate and begin spreading amongst people…
“A rise in poultry outbreaks inevitably brings the virus into nearer and extra frequent proximity to people, which is at all times a danger with viruses like influenza that may quickly evolve,” Dr. Holly Shelton, head of the Influenza Viruses Group at The Pirbright Institute, instructed The Telegraph.
If H5N1 have been to start out spreading as broadly as COVID has amongst people, the loss of life toll could be completely catastrophic.
Since 2003, greater than half of all human instances of H5N1 have died…
Some 864 human infections and 456 deaths with the H5N1 subtype have been reported in 19 nations since 2003.
Over the previous couple of years, there has simply been one disaster after one other, and we really are within the midst of a “excellent storm”.
However a hen flu pandemic would undoubtedly take issues to a completely new degree.
So allow us to hope that this present outbreak might be introduced underneath management, and allow us to hope that H5N1 doesn’t begin spreading amongst people any time quickly.
364 views
