Europe is stepping up its surveillance for bird flu, Finland is considering closing its fur farms to prevent the virus from spreading and mutating. The WHO is calling for more international cooperation to find the pathogen that could cause a new pandemic.
“Disease X – are you ready?” This daunting question was the title of a panel discussion on the next pathogenic threat held in Stockholm during the ESCAIDE 2024 infectious diseases conference, organised by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, in November.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified around 1,650 pathogens that need to be studied more closely in the search for the virus or bacteria that could cause the next pandemic—or Disease X, according to Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, a physician and head of the R&D blueprint in the WHO’s Emergencies Programme.
Finding the most dangerous pathogens “is one of the most critical challenges for our society,” she said, noting the need for a more intensified and global collaboration ahead.
“We want researchers to understand that collaboration is crucial,” Henao-Restrepo said, reminding the audience that the WHO has initiated a new open digital platform to facilitate such interconnected worldwide work.
The next pandemic
A small poll in the ECDC’s conference mobile app among the 4,000 physical and digital participants showed that human avian influenza is currently the main pathogen of interest that could cause a new pandemic. Currently, the WHO considers the risk of human infection, in general, to be low.
However, hundreds of thousands of H5N1 cases have been reported in poultry, foxes, minks, seals, wild birds and even dolphins across Europe since 2020, according to the Telegraph, inciting fears of a jump to humans.
So far this year, 55 human cases of avian flu or the H5N1 virus have been reported in the US. These cases are mainly linked to farm workers who were exposed to the virus through contact with poultry or cows.
Since 29 October, the ECDC has been advising healthcare workers in both primary and secondary care in the EU/EEA to ask patients with flu-like symptoms or respiratory problems about their contact with birds or other animals.
The aim is to help identify human cases of bird flu across Europe, as ECDC issued guidance on stepping up European surveillance and testing for the influenza virus.
In early November, a teenager in British Columbia, Canada, became critically ill with a strain of H5N1 called ‘highly pathogenic avian influenza of unknown origin’.
The teenager’s viral profile appeared to have adapted to a human host. However, there was no evidence that it could be transmitted to another person, according to a statement from the country’s public health agency.
So far, no human cases have been reported in Europe, the ECDC at ESCAIDE 2024 told Euractiv.
Finland’s H5N1 outbreak
Mika Salminen, Director General of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), said that in the spring/summer of 2023, Finland experienced an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 in over 70 fur farms, probably from seagulls. This prompted the country to buy 20,000 doses of the human avian influenza vaccine.
More than 500 veterinarians, laboratory staff, farmers and workers were directly exposed to the virus, and 450 of them took the vaccine.
“Now, there is a citizens’ initiative in the Finnish Riksdag to close down all the Finnish fur farms, which produce 500,000 foxes, mink and raccoon dogs each year,” Mika Salminen told Euractiv.
The THL supports the law, as it believes that fur farming poses too great a threat to human life and health, both nationally and globally, due to the potential risk of creating a pandemic.
“The mink has two cell receptors through which the virus could enter, for example, in the airways, one of which is the same as in humans,” Salminen told Euractiv. This means the H5N1 virus could adapt in a mink and spread more easily to humans.
Even though many European countries have banned fur farms, Mika Salmininen says that fur farming should also be discussed at the EU/EEA level.
He also calls for more general pandemic resources, comparing the need to that of a state’s military defence forces, which are always on standby and could be called out.
In the early spring of 2024, three avian influenza outbreaks among domestic birds occurred in Sweden. Wild birds such as gooses, hawks, and swans were also found dead with the virus earlier this year.
[Edited by Vasiliki Angouridi, Brian Maguire]
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Publish date : 2024-12-04 18:14:00
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