Why bird flu is always a ‘red flag’: Canadian health care experts break it down
Global News
According to the World Health Organization, while the risk to humans remains low for now, bird flu needs 'to be monitored closely.' Canadian health experts agree.
While the risk from H5N1 influenza or bird flu virus remains low among humans, it’s always a “red flag” that requires monitoring, according to some Canadian experts.
“It’s a very nasty infection, so you never want to see bird flu spreading,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto General Hospital.
“It’s always a red flag and it always requires surveillance and to be treated with the utmost concern,” Bogoch told Global News.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu, H5N1 has been spreading among poultry and wild birds for 25 years. At a virtual briefing Wednesday, Tedros told reporters that recent incidents of infections in mink, otters and sea lions “need to be monitored closely” but maintained that the risk to human beings remains low for now.
“But we cannot assume that will remain the case and we must prepare for any change in the status quo,” Tedros said.
The WHO states on its website that “animal influenza viruses are distinct from human seasonal influenza viruses and do not easily transmit between humans.” However, an animal influenza virus like the bird flu “may occasionally infect humans through direct or indirect contact.”
The virus, according to Bogoch, is not easily transmitted from birds to humans and it’s not easily transmitted from humans to humans either. He noted that cases of bird flu in humans have been rare since the flu strain first emerged in 1996.
But, of all the reported cases of bird flu in history, just over half the people who get infected end up dying after experiencing symptoms like fever, chills, headache and shortness of breath, which implies how serious the virus is, said Bogoch.