'Matter of Grave Concern': WHO Raises Alarm Against Growing Human Cases of Bird Flu

New Delhi: Amid growing danger of bird flu infections among humans, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday expressed grave concern over the spread of H5N1 bird flu infections in human beings and other species as well. WHO Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar termed the present situation of H5N1 bird flu as a matter of grave concern. With cows and goats joining the list of mammals infected with the current bird flu outbreak that began in 2020, the United Nations (UN) health agency official has referred to the present situation as a global zoonotic animal pandemic.

Pertinently, there is no evidence that the H5N1 influenza A virus is spreading among humans at present. However, the 'extraordinarily high' mortality rate in the hundreds of cases where humans have been infected through contact with animals has come across as a major matter of concern.

Mortality rate has been recorded at around 52 per cent in last 15 months

The UN agency has recorded a significant 463 deaths from 889 human cases across the world, putting the mortality rate at a worrying 52 per cent in the last 15 months.

Talking to media personnel, WHO Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar stated, “This remains, I think, an enormous concern."

Farrar said, “The great concern of course is that in – infecting ducks and chickens and then increasingly mammals, that virus now evolves and develops the ability to infect humans and then critically the ability to go from human to human.”

The strain of bird flu that has killed millions of wild birds in recent years has been detected in a range of mammals over the last few years, but this is the first time it has been found in cattle, with eight US states finding the highly pathogenic avian influenza in a dairy herd.

The WHO chief scientist added, while sending a warning over the issue, “When you come into the mammalian population, then you're getting closer to humans. This virus is just looking for new, novel hosts."

Situation of Bird Flu in Kerala

A bird flu outbreak has been reported in two places in the Alappuzha district of Kerala. Officials said the H5N1 avian influenza was confirmed in ducks reared in an area of ward 1 of Edathua Grama Panchayat and another area in ward 3 of Cheruthana Grama Panchayat. The infection was confirmed after the samples of the ducks showing symptoms of bird flu were sent to a lab in Bhopal for testing.