UK officials are developing scenarios of what might happen if the bird flu outbreak that’s affected millions of animals worldwide were to evolve to spread between humans.
(Bloomberg) — UK officials are developing scenarios of what might happen if the bird flu outbreak that’s affected millions of animals worldwide were to evolve to spread between humans.
There’s been “no or little evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission” of the virus, the UK Health Security Agency said in a technical briefing Thursday. A group has been formed to assess the risks and model scenarios were the outbreak to spill over.
The avian influenza technical group comprises 26 members including Susan Hopkins, the health agency’s chief medical adviser, and Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College London whose Covid-19 data informed the government’s decision to enter lockdown in March 2020.
The number of virus cases in wild and domesticated birds worldwide has surged to record levels, with a rising number of mammals and a handful of people also being infected. While there hasn’t been any recent signs of human-to-human transmission, infections in birds can be passed to humans via direct contact.
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The “mild” scenario in the UK’s technical briefing models for an infection-fatality rate that’s similar to Covid-19 in mid-2021, while the “more severe” scenario has parameters based around the 1918 influenza pandemic. Lateral flow tests to detect avian influenza are also being considered.
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