So is bird flu just being hyped up right now or is it a real hazard?
Anti-vaccine influencers sure do seem to be hyping it up, don’t they?
Bird Flu Hype
Every other post they makes these days seems to be related to misinformation about bird flu…
And how it is just a hoax to vaccinate people…
Or a very elaborate ploy to trick people into drinking ripple (pea milk), soy, almond, or oat milk, etc!
And of course, even though we don’t even know if their will be a bird flu pandemic in people or how dangerous it might be, these folks have already made the choice to skip getting vaccinated.
As they push propaganda to scare others from getting vaccinated if a H5N1 bird flu pandemic does actually spread to people.
And they do all of this as they blame the media for fueling bird flu hype.
Bird flu had been reported on and off in the media since about 1997, but this
Bird flu hype – The spread of a disease outbreak through the media
reporting gained enormous momentum in 2005, to such an extent that one can
call this “bird flu hype.”
and Internet discussion groups
Hype about bird flu that isn’t even new!
Bird Flu Hazards
What’s new is that so many wild and domestic birds have gotten sick over the last few years, in outbreaks that just don’t seem to be stopping. And we are seeing H5N1 spread to more and more mammals, from seals, coyotes, and bears to cats, cows, and squirrels.
So should you be worried about bird flu?
As its name suggests, bird flu is a strain of flu that mostly affects birds. This includes wild birds (ducks, geese, ducks, swans, storks) and domestic poultry (chickens, ducks, and turkeys).
So if you raise poultry, you should be very worried about bird flu right now!
After all, over 80 million chickens, ducks, and turkeys were killed (culled) in the last few years just in the United States because they were infected with the H5N1 virus.
Most recently, the H5N1 bird flu virus has made the jump to infect some cows in Texas and a dairy worker.
This is the second person to get H5N1 in the United States. In 2022, a person who was culling birds with H5N1 got sick.
Fortunately, both of these people had mild symptoms, even though H5N1 can often lead to life-threatening infections.
Still, the CDC reports that “the detections of H5 viruses in wild birds, poultry, some mammals, and in two people in the United States do not change the risk to the general public’s health, which CDC considers to be low.”
“No known human-to-human spread has occurred with the contemporary A(H5N1) viruses that are currently circulating in birds in the United States and globally. In other countries, sporadic human cases of human infections with the A(H5N1) viruses most common in birds globally have been reported since 2022 mostly following exposure to infected poultry.”
Current U.S. Bird Flu Situation in Humans
The big hazard is that as we continue to see widespread cases of H5N1 in wild birds, with spread to other mammals, the virus will have more and more opportunities to mutate that could eventually make it more likely to spread to people.
If that happens, we will hopefully be ready, as we have had an H5N1 vaccine since 2007.
More on Bird Flu Hazards
- Did H5N1 Bird Flu Vaccines Cause a Pandemic?
- How a Bird Flu Pandemic and H5N1 Vaccines Have Become Misinformation Hot Topics
- What is Disease X?
- How Concerned Should We Be About Bird Flu?
- Bird flu hype – The spread of a disease outbreak through the media and Internet discussion groups
- USDA – Protect Your Poultry From Bird Flu
- USDA – Confirmations of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Commercial and Backyard Flocks
- CDC – Current U.S. Bird Flu Situation in Humans
- CDC – Frequently Asked Questions about Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
- CDC – Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A (H5N1) Virus Infection Reported in a Person in the U.S.
- Concerns about Human Transmission of Avian Flu Following Death of Cambodian Girl
- What to know about the latest bird flu outbreaks
- Avian flu strikes more poultry flocks as WOAH weighs in on vaccination and trade
Last Updated on April 25, 2024