And the Bird Flu just keeps on coming…

Kit Knightly

The bird flu narrative is constantly developing, so I figured it was time for an update.

You know…to keep you all abreast of the chicken situation. Ba dum tss!

Back in April the scare stories were about Bird Flu jumping from birds to cattle and from cattle to people, and how – as a result – we should stop eating red meat.

Things have moved on since then. May has been a busy month for bird flu watchers.

Back on May 9th it was reported that 70 people in Colorado were being “monitored” for the disease following “potential exposure”, but no details on the exact nature or method of exposure were ever released.

Another poultry worker, this time in Michigan, became the second official US case on May 21st.

An Iowa egg farm is going to cull over 4 million birds after a single case was detected. Almost 100 million birds have been culled since the “outbreak” began in 2022.

There are now fears that Bird Flu may have spread to the food supply, after it was found in a “condemned dairy cow”.

Four days ago, Forbes reported a “new study” claiming “Drinking Infected Milk Could Spread Disease”. While NPR is warning that “limited testing leaves safety questions unanswered” regarding raw, unpasteurized milk.

But it’s not just chickens and cows we have to worry about now.

The Atlantic is worried about pigs, with Katherine Wu calling them “The Bird-Flu Host We Should Worry About”

Just today the Telegraph reported that a “slight evolution” in the H5N1 influenza strain has allowed it to “adapt to mammalian hosts”.

One ecologist told phys.org that infections in dairy cows are just “the tip of the iceberg”, and that mammals all over the globe are infected.

It’s spreading outside America too. The world’s third human case was supposedly an Australian child recently returned from travelling in India, alongside that two Victorian farms have reported cases of a different strain.

Naturally, China is going along with it, reporting their own fatality due to a third strain of bird flu earlier today.

So that’s the problem chuntering along at a decent pace. How’s the solution coming along?

An article in MedicalXPress discusses the “ethical considerations” for various bird flu interventions.

New vaccines – both for chickens and humans – are being developed with Covid-like efficiency. The human shot is of course mRNA based.

Reuters reports that the US, UK, EU and Canada are all “taking steps to acquire or manufacture H5N1 bird flu vaccines”. Some nations are already considering mandating all poultry farm workers take the shot when it becomes available.

As you can see, things are moving pretty fast – almost all of these stories are from just the last three or four days.

I predicted in my recent article that bird flu was the main contender for “the next pandemic”, and it looks like that’s where we’re headed.

The good news is that the human cases caused a surge in the value of Moderna and BioTech’s stock.

Isn’t that nice?

Of course, that will be nothing compared to the riches that will start pouring in when the new Bird Flu vaccines get emergency approval.

Updated 29/05 to include Iowa chicken culling news.

Source: Off Guardian