Experts are sounding the alarm about a potential bird flu pandemic that could be “100 times worse than COVID”, following the discovery of a rare human case in Texas, as reported by the New York Post on Thursday. The H5N1 avian flu, which emerged in 2020 with a new strain affecting wild birds nationwide, along with commercial poultry and backyard flocks, has rapidly spread.
Recent cases of the avian flu have been detected in mammals, including cattle herds across four states. On Monday, federal health officials revealed that a dairy worker in Texas contracted the virus.
This virus [has been] on the top of the pandemic list for many, many years and probably decades, Suresh Kuchipudi, a bird flu researcher from Pittsburgh, said at a recent panel discussing the issue, the New York Post reported citing the Daily Mail. And now we’re getting dangerously close to this virus potentially causing a pandemic.
Kuchipudi pointed out that the H5N1 virus has been identified in various species worldwide and has demonstrated its capacity to infect a variety of mammalian hosts, including humans. "Therefore, in my view, this virus poses the most significant pandemic threat, evident on a global scale," Kuchipudi remarked.
John Fulton, a pharmaceutical industry consultant for vaccines and the founder of Canada-based BioNiagara who organized the meeting, also expressed his concerns, the Mail reports, the New York Post reported.
This appears to be 100 times worse than COVID — or it could be if it mutates and maintains its high case fatality rate, he said. Once it’s mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops. Around 52 per cent of humans who have contracted H5N1 since 2003 have died, according to the World Health Organization
In contrast, COVID-19 currently has a mortality rate of less than 0.1% among those infected, although at the onset of the pandemic, the fatality rate was approximately 20%. According to the New York Post, symptoms of the bird flu resemble those of other types of flu, such as cough, body aches, and fever.