Experts expressed fear about the bird flu pandemic’s potential quick spread, which may result in an extremely high fatality rate and can be “100 times worse than the COVID pandemic,” according to the Daily Mail. The report cited scientists who expressed alarm about the possibility of a new pandemic during a recent briefing where researchers reviewed the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Scientists say the virus is approaching a crucial threshold and has the potential to spark a global pandemic.
52 out of every 100 people infected with the H5N1 virus have died since 2003
Dr. Suresh Kuchipudi, a well-known bird flu specialist in Pittsburgh, said at the briefing that H5N1 flu has the potential to cause a pandemic since it can infect a wide range of mammals, including humans. “We are getting dangerously close to this virus potentially causing a pandemic,” he said.
“We are not really talking about a virus that is yet to make a jump, we are talking about a virus that is globally present, already infecting a range of mammals and is circulating… It is high time that we are prepared,” Dr Kuchipudi stated during the meeting.
Another specialist, John Fulton, stated that the potential H5N1 pandemic could be far more deadly than the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fulton, a consultant for pharmaceutical companies, stated, “This appears to be 100 times worse than COVID, or it could be if it mutates and maintains its high case fatality rate. Once it’s mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops.”
According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, 52 out of every 100 people infected with the H5N1 virus have died since 2003, representing a fatality rate of more than 50%. Meanwhile, the current COVID fatality rate is 0.1%, down from 20% at the beginning of the pandemic.
According to WHO data, 462 deaths were recorded from the total of 887 documented cases of the avian flu virus.
The Daily Mail report came shortly after avian flu outbreaks were confirmed at a poultry factory in Michigan and an egg producer in Texas. There have also been reports of dairy cows contracting bird flu, as well as the first confirmed case of a human contracting the virus through a mammal.