Should we be worried the bird flu will spark a new pandemic?

Should we be concerned about the bird flu? “Right now, the risk to the general public in the United States is low,” physician and epidemiologist Neil M. Vora told Blue Marble. “But certain flu viruses have this ability to mix and match, and as they mix and match, they can come out looking like a brand-new virus that has abilities to transmit differently and cause different levels of disease.”
Human activities such as deforestation, industrial livestock farming, and the commercial trade of wildlife have led to a rise in pathogens jumping from animals to people, an event Vora said is known as a “spillover.”
“If bird flu mutates so that it can transmit after that initial spillover event, the risk for pandemic increases,” Vora said. “Our current public health model is focused on trying to contain outbreaks … But at the same time, we also need to be investing in measures to prevent those initial outbreaks from happening.”
#virus #birdflu #pandemic
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