Experts are concerned that the bird flu pandemic may spread quickly, resulting in an exceptionally high death rate and possibly being “100 times worse than the Covid pandemic,” according to a UK tabloid, the Daily Mail.
The report highlighted concerns voiced by experts during a recent briefing where researchers discussed the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Scientists cautioned that the virus is nearing a critical threshold and has the potential to trigger a global pandemic.
Dr. Suresh Kuchipudi, a prominent bird flu researcher based in Pittsburgh, issued a warning during the briefing, emphasizing the pandemic potential of the H5N1 flu due to its ability to infect a wide range of mammals, including humans. “We are getting dangerously close to this virus potentially causing a pandemic,” he emphasized.
“We are not really talking about a virus that is yet to make a jump, we are talking about a virus that is globally present, already infecting a range of mammals and is circulating… It is really high time that we are prepared,” Dr. Kuchipudi remarked during the briefing.
Another expert, John Fulton, stressed the severity of the potential H5N1 pandemic, suggesting it could be significantly more deadly than the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fulton, a consultant for a pharmaceutical company, stated, “This appears to be 100 times worse than Covid, or it could be if it mutates and maintains its high case fatality rate. Once it’s mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops.”
According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, the fatality rate of the H5N1 virus has exceeded 50 per cent since 2003, with 52 out of every 100 infected patients succumbing to the illness. In contrast, the current fatality rate of Covid is 0.1 per cent, down from 20 per cent at the outset of the pandemic.
WHO data indicates a total of 887 reported cases of bird flu virus, resulting in 462 deaths.
The Daily Mail report coincided with recent outbreaks of avian flu in a poultry facility in Michigan and an egg producer in Texas. Additionally, reports have emerged of dairy cows contracting bird flu and the first documented case of a human contracting the virus from a mammal.