H5N1 bird flu news thread

[caltrek]

Why We Should Seriously Consider Vaccinating Wild Birds to Control Bird Flu
by Lynn C. Klotz
May 14, 2025

Introduction:

(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) Avian H5N1 took a big leap about four years ago. Previously the virus, first detected in the mid-1990s, would tear through domesticated poultry, killing off flocks in days. It occasionally jumped to wild birds, but it never managed to spread very far for very long. That changed in 2021 to 2022. Avian influenza or “bird flu” had long been fairly innocuous in wild birds, but the latest strain left birds severely stricken with neurological or other symptoms. Wild birds began dying in large numbers from it. But before they did, some were able to spread it to other regions where they infected other wild and domestic animals.

H5N1 has affected some 166 million commercial birds so far. Finding one sick bird means a farmer must cull the entire flock. And even if chickens are kept separate from wild birds, farmers can carry infected droppings into coops on their boots or other ways. Bird flu has now spread to dairy farms and led to scores of human infections. Far from dying out, H5N1 appears likely to pose a long-term health and economic threat.

Many countries already vaccinate poultry against bird flu. It’s been an effective strategy, but it’s not free from controversy. The United States has eschewed the practice over concerns that vaccinated birds might be able to spread the disease while themselves surviving an infection. Some countries restrict imports of vaccinated birds because of this risk. Facing the longest bird flu outbreak in US history, though, the Trump administration is considering inoculating flocks.

But by now bird flu is out of the barn, so to speak. It’s infected nearly 500 species of wild birds and mammals ranging from foxes to zoo tigers. It’s time to consider another means of stopping its spread: vaccinating wild birds and, perhaps, other wildlife. By doing so, we will rescue large numbers of animals from a painful death, slow the transmission of infections, and reduce the probability of a pandemic in humans. These outcomes provide reason enough to vaccinate wildlife.

Read more here: https://thebulletin.org/2025/05/why-we ... heading

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More on that by Reuters:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bulgaria-repo ... 28983.html

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Generative Artificial Intelligence Uncovers Previously Undetected Bird Flu Exposure Risks in Maryland Emergency Departments
August 25, 2025

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine developed a new and highly effective application of an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to quickly scan notes in electronic medical records and identify high-risk patients who may have been infected with H5N1 avian influenza or “bird flu”, according to new findings published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Using a generative AI large language model (LLM), the research team analyzed 13,494 visits across University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) hospital emergency departments from adult patients in urban, suburban, and rural areas in 2024. These patients all had acute respiratory illness (such as, cough, fever, congestion) or conjunctivitis—symptoms consistent with early H5N1 infections. The goal was to assess how well generative AI could find high-risk patients who may have been overlooked at the time of initial treatment.

Scanning all of the emergency department notes, the model flagged 76 because they mentioned a high-risk exposure for bird flu, such as working as a butcher or at a farm with livestock, like chickens or cows. Usually, these exposures were mentioned incidentally—for example, documenting a patient’s occupation as a butcher or farmworker—and not because of clinical suspicion for bird flu.

After a brief review by research staff, 14 patients were confirmed to have had recent, relevant exposure to animals known to carry H5N1, including poultry, wild birds, and livestock. These patients were not tested specifically for H5N1, so their potential bird-flu infections were not confirmed, but the model worked to find those “needle in a haystack” cases among thousands of patients treated for seasonal flu and other routine respiratory illnesses.

“This study shows how generative AI can fill a critical gap in our public health infrastructure by detecting high-risk patients that would otherwise go unnoticed,” said study corresponding author Katherine E. Goodman, PhD, JD, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology & Public Health at UMSOM and a faculty member of the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC).

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1095882

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In Tracking Avian Flu, Data Privacy Stymies Researchers
By Grey Moran
September 4, 2025

Introduction:

(Sentient) [For years, veterinary researcher Maurice Pitesky has run up against a roadblock while tracking the rapid spread of avian flu: a lack of public data. He has attempted to obtain — but has repeatedly been denied — state and federal data revealing the location of avian flu outbreaks on U.S. farms. It’s data he says could help inform predictive modeling to warn farmers about a higher risk of avian flu transmission near their property, giving them enough time to tighten biosecurity measures and potentially ward off an outbreak.

A national predictive surveillance system doesn’t exist yet, but Pitesky thinks it could be very feasible — if only he had access to more precise government data.

Data revealing the location and other information about the farms with animals that have contracted avian flu has generally been deemed confidential by state and federal government officials. The officials collecting this data do not make it publicly available under most circumstances, citing legal exemptions and agreements with agricultural businesses. The aim is often to protect farmers from economic losses, but in effect, Pitesky says, these decisions are a barrier for scientists scrambling to monitor the evolving, adaptable virus as it circulates in the U.S.

“The state and the feds have all that data about which farms are positive and which farms are negative,” said Pitesky, an associate professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine-Cooperative Extension. “They’ve taken a good idea protecting farmer information to an illogical conclusion — in the sense that you basically have all that data siloed by just a few people who, at this stage, aren’t really doing very much research.”

Some of this data even originates at Pitesky’s own university. The California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at UC Davis is the only lab in California equipped for high-risk avian flu testing in poultry and cattle — data that is reported to the public by the state and federal government, while stripped of data about the farms.

Read more here: https://sentientmedia.org/data-from-fa ... ian-flu/

Edit Comment: It is stories like this that reinforce my choice to become a strict vegetarian. If the chicken raising industry can't get its act together to maximize efforts to control avian flu, than why should I consume their product?

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Bird Flu Is Making Headlines Once Again: What’s The Current Situation?
By Laura Simmons
October 23, 2025

Introduction:

(IFL Science) After a relatively quiet summer, bird flu is beginning to rear its ugly head once more. But even if we haven’t been talking about it as much, that doesn’t mean the virus has gone away – and it’s not only the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain that’s been making moves.

Additional Extract:

The latest data from the US Department of Agriculture, correct as of October 23, reveals that almost 6.5 million birds have been affected by HPAI in the last 30 days, prompting the New York Times to declare that “bird flu is back”. That includes outbreaks in 32 commercial and 29 backyard flocks.

Minnesota is currently seeing the greatest number of outbreaks, but a single outbreak in Washington state affected almost 2 million birds. There has also been one confirmed cattle outbreak in the last 30 days, in Idaho.

One of the concerns being raised as we head into this winter season is a lack of federal communication and potential disruptions to surveillance resulting from the ongoing shutdown. “Because of the government shutdown, I know less than I would normally know,” Dr Amy Swinford, director of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, told the New York Times.

It’s not only the US that is being impacted by H5N1 right now, with outbreaks being reported in a number of European countries (England, Germany, Ireland, as well as Cambodia – including a human patient, and human cases in mainland China).

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/bird-flu-is ... on-81299

[wjfox]

'It's nasty': Could this virus spark the world's next pandemic?

8 December 2025

Following the first human death from the H5N5 strain of bird flu, experts are warning the virus, of which a number of strains are circulating in parts of the world, could lead to the world's next pandemic.

The death also comes as bird flu was detected in an Australian external territory for the first time.

European health authorities warned this month that governments should step up efforts to combat bird flu threats amid an "unprecedented" number of outbreaks in the northern hemisphere's autumn.

Since September, more than 1,400 infections among wild birds and poultry have been detected in at least 26 European countries, four times higher than a year ago and the highest level since 2016, raising the risk that the virus could spill over into people, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Some forms of bird flu, like H5N1, have a higher mortality rate in humans than COVID-19, although infections are rare and typically occur in cases who have been in close contact with sick birds and livestock.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/cou ... /1ung1to27

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How a Bird Flu Outbreak Wiped Out a Generation of Seals in Patagonia—and What It Means for Wildlife Conservation
By Claudio Campagna, Julieta Campagna, and Valeria Falabella
January 2, 2026

Introduction:

(Wiki Observatory) In the spring of 2023, we returned to Península Valdés, a rugged coastal region in Argentine Patagonia, expecting to witness the familiar sights and sounds of southern elephant seals during their breeding season. These massive marine mammals, with males weighing up to 4,000 kilograms, gather in large colonies on the beaches to give birth, nurse their young, and mate. The air usually resonates with the cries of thousands of pups calling out to their mothers, the grunts and bellows of males competing for dominance, and the buzz of life thriving on the rocky shores.

Instead, we were met with an eerie silence and a devastating sight: beaches once bustling with thousands of seals were littered with hundreds of dead pups and adults. The usual cacophony had been replaced by the stench of decay, and the empty spaces where seals should have gathered were painfully obvious. This mass mortality event had unfolded over just a few weeks—a stark and sudden collapse that no one could have predicted with such speed and severity.

Southern elephant seals lead challenging lives. Adult males arrive early in the breeding season and fast for months while defending harems of females. Females give birth to a single pup, nurse it for about a month, and then mate again before returning to the sea, pregnant once more. The pups are entirely dependent on their mothers; without constant nursing, they quickly perish. In 2022, our aerial surveys recorded ca. 18,000 females that gave birth to a pup. In the most crowded areas of the colony, we recorded 4,145 pups alive. But in 2023, in the same crowded areas, the numbers had decreased to 135 pups alive, most of which had died a few weeks later. Many of the mothers were gone. A year later, in 2024, some females returned, but, once again, the numbers were low compared to 2022, a 67 percent decrease in the most important sampled areas of the colony. Many adult seals displayed abnormal behaviors, such as reduced aggression in males and scattered female groups without male attendance.
This tragedy of the 2023 season was not just a population decline; it was a profound disruption of the social fabric that governs elephant seal life.

Read more here: https://observatory.wiki/How_a_Bird_Fl ... ervation

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Worth noting this isn't necessarily H5N1 but rather the broader HPAI category.

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Bird Flu Detected in Iowa Backyard Chicken Flocks as Migration Raises Risk
By Emily Payne
March 23, 2026

Introduction:

(Sentient) Avian influenza, or bird flu, was detected in two backyard chicken flocks in Iowa this month. The cases, located in Iowa’s southeastern Washington County and northwestern Buena Vista County, come as wild birds enter a high-migration period, increasing the risk of avian flu infection among domestic flocks.

These are Iowa’s fifth and sixth reported avian flu detections this year, part of an ongoing national outbreak among domestic birds. In total, more than 30 million birds have been affected by avian flu in Iowa since the start of this outbreak — more than any other state.

Experts say that spring and fall are particularly high-risk times for the spread of avian flu, because wild birds can carry the virus asymptomatically as they migrate across regions and spread it through feces, saliva and mucus.

“The entire state of Iowa is in the path of migrating birds of all types of species that are potential carriers of the virus. While cases may be isolated to an area, there is also a good chance they will be across the entire state because of this,” Christa Hartsook, small farms program coordinator for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, tells Sentient in an email.

Avian flu exists in two types: low pathogenicity and highly pathogenic. Low pathogenicity avian flu typically causes few or no signs of illness, but certain strains can mutate into highly pathogenic avian flu, which is deadly to domestic poultry and often wipes out entire flocks within just a few days. Humans can contract avian flu through direct unprotected exposure to an infected animal, though it is rare. One person in Iowa has been infected since 2024, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates the current public health risk as low.

Read more here: https://sentientmedia.org/bird-flu-det ... n-flocks/

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Worth noting this isn't necessarily H5N1 but rather the broader HPAI category.

Put this under the category of I learn something new every day:

(USGS)

Avian influenza (AI) type A viruses are divided into subtypes based on two proteins on the surface of the virus:

Hemagglutinin (HA), of which there are 16 subtypes (H1-H16).
Neuraminidase (NA), of which there are 9 subtypes (N1-N9).

Many combinations of HA and NA proteins are possible, for example H5N1, H5N2, H7N2, and H7N8.

AI viruses are also classified into two groups based on their ability to produce disease in chickens: highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI). 

HPAI viruses cause high mortality in poultry and death in wild birds. 

LPAI viruses can cause a variety of outcomes in poultry ranging from no apparent clinical signs to moderate death rates. LPAI viruses usually cause little to no signs in wild birds. 

H5 and H7 LPAI viruses have the potential to change into HPAI viruses and are closely monitored by animal and public health officials. The first HPAI outbreak in the U.S. occurred in 2015 and the second outbreak started in 2022. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is the lead federal agency for avian influenza in animals, but they work closely with many partner agencies, including the USGS. 

Source:
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-are-diff ... opilot.com

[wjfox]

Bird flu vaccine trial against potential pandemic strain begins

22 April 2026

The first volunteers in the UK have been immunised with a vaccine to protect against a potential bird flu pandemic.

The vaccine targets the H5N1 flu strain which has caused devastating infections in bird populations worldwide and has spread to some mammals.

The threat to humans is currently low, says the UK Health Protection Agency, with almost all human cases linked to close contact with infected animals.

The vaccine uses the same mRNA technology used in current Covid jabs, with scientists saying this enables the vaccine to be created quickly and at scale, in the event of a pandemic.

The trial is hoping to recruit people who work in the poultry industry or are over the age of 65 - the two most at-risk groups.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy41z0yj8mjo

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Seasonal Influenza Vaccines May Significantly Reduce the Risk of Death from H5N1 infection.
By
May , 2026

Introduction:

(Futurity) As potentially deadly avian influenza (H5N1) continues its global spread, moving from birds into mammals and in rare cases into humans, scientists are confronting a difficult reality.

If a human pandemic emerges, vaccines designed specifically to protect people against H5N1 may not be ready in time.

New international research led by National Taiwan University, in collaboration with University of South Florida Health, suggests that part of the answer may already exist.

In a study in Emerging Microbes & Infections, researchers found that seasonal influenza vaccines in routine global use may significantly reduce the risk of death from H5N1 infection. The results are based on a systematic review and analysis of ferret studies, widely considered the gold standard animal model for human influenza.

The findings highlight an important implication for pandemic preparedness, suggesting that readily available tools may offer protection while the world races to develop more targeted solutions.

Read more here: https://www.futurity.org/seasonal-flu- ... -3333222