The spread of avian influenza across five continents is one of the most dangerous health threats the planet has faced. A study by Vijay Dhanasekaran, an Indian epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, shows that more than 250 million birds have been culled around the world to stem the outbreak of the disease, with another 40 different A species of 100,000 wild birds has died from the H5N1 virus, a report was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
But the report further emphasizes that the epicenter of the crisis has shifted from Asia, where the crisis originated, to Europe and Africa. Furthermore, the document warns that feared transmission of the virus to mammals has already occurred, which in turn increases the likelihood that it will eventually impact humans on a large scale, as in the case of a 9-year-old girl in the United States who was infected. Ecuador.
As Raúl Rivas, professor of microbiology at the University of Salamanca, warned in this newspaper a few days ago, there is a growing fear that the bird pandemic will spread to humans generally: “Coronaviruses in the 21st century Giving us a triple whammy, but viruses such as influenza viruses and avian influenza viruses are probably the ones most likely to cause another pandemic.
The authors of the article are an international team of scientists who studied epidemiological data since 2005 and more than 10,000 viral genomes, highlighting that H5 avian influenza viruses emerged in Africa and Europe between 2020 and 2022, with new lineage, which continues during a cycle due to the increasing number of infections in wild birds, which can easily spread the microorganisms while leading to the spread of new strains.
This study, based on a phylogenetic and epidemiological analysis of H5N1 viruses circulating in poultry and wild birds between 2021 and 2022, shows that highly pathogenic H5N1 viruses originated from other H5 viruses in Europe that were previously Has caused epizootics (animals). Epidemics (equivalent to epidemics) in Asia and Africa in 2016-17 and 2020-21. Gustavo del Real, a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA-CSIC), explains in a scientific report that these new highly virulent H5N1 viruses recombine with other low-pathogenic avian influenza viruses from wild and poultry. Publishing microcontroller. ).
The article “proves what was already suspected: the role of wild birds in the global spread of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, which has caused widespread morbidity in both wild and domestic populations in many countries around the world, including Spain.” Mass mortality in birds. The virus emerged in 2021 and also puts a variety of mammals at risk, including some sporadic cases of human infection,” Del Real said.
Although the H5N1 virus first emerged in China in 1996, outbreaks of evolved strains of the H5 subtype have not stopped since then, mainly in Asia. “This study sheds light on the origin and potential evolution of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus responsible for the 2021 avian influenza pandemic,” the researchers added.