H5N1: Update on an Emerging Threat

I'm Matt Willis Public Health officer from Marine County with a status update for April 26th the H5 N1 strain of bird flu is in the news a lot these days because it's spreading quickly through bird populations across the world and is now infecting mammals I'm going to explain what this might mean for our community and offer some steps to follow h5n1 first serviced a few years ago in wild birds what's concerning from a human or public health standpoint is a virus has acquired the ability to infect mammals cows seem especially susceptible and herds in at least 10 states have experienced outbreaks infections in at least 10 different mammal species have also been documented including in humans in Marin and across California we've seen cases in wild birds and in poultry but it haven't had any human or livestock cases yet so we're facing a virus that's evolving and taking on qualities that allow it to spread more effectively if that sounds familiar it is it mirrors what we experienced with the covid-19 virus over the past four years remember with new covid variants we are most interested in two things as the virus evolved the first was transmissibility that is how easily does the virus move between people and second with severity meaning how sick does it make people who are in affected for h5n1 we're asking the same questions and we're reassured on both counts there's only been a handful of human cases and they've been among people with close contact with infected birds or animals and none have been very sick this means the virus is still some big steps away from being an active pandemic threat because it doesn't seem to spread from person to person and it doesn't seem to cause serious illness but the concern is that progression from being a bird illness only to infecting other mammals and now infecting humans because the way viruses change is so critical to our ongoing experience of covid and to our risk for the next pandemic I'm going to remind us how viruses evolve this is a simplification but I see two main ways one is random errors that happen when the viruses multiply in an infected host whether it's a bird animal or human remember when we're infected the virus thinks its main job is to multiply just to make as many copies of of itself as it can and find another host to infect before our immune system fights it off the diseases we experience the symptoms the sickness we experience like fevers and aches and even breathing problems is often just a byproduct of the virus multiplying in different organs and our natural Arun response you might expect with billions of copies of virus being made that a copying error might happen every once in a while that's called a mutation rarely but sometimes these mutations these errors in copying actually benefit the virus and you get a new genetic line or a new branch of the virus family tree that is more successful at spreading or fighting off immunity so random erors and coping is one way viruses evolve another way the viruses change is even more concerning in my mind it's called recombination and here's how that works you can imagine that sometimes a person or animal is infected with two viruses at once which is called co-infection let's say you're co-infected with virus a and virus B say in your lungs so you've got lots of viruses copying being made at the same time in the same little microscopic spot what can and does happen is that the genes of virus a can get blended with the genes of virus B and you get a new virus that's a combination of A and B now let's imagine a has genes that made it great at spreading between people but it only caused mild illness and virus B made people very sick but didn't spread very well when the two combine it's possible the new virus can combine those superpowers into a new virus C that could both spread quickly and make people very sick that's one way pandemics start start we're definitely not there yet with h5n1 but it's getting uncomfortably close so what does this mean to us hopefully by understanding some of the biology you can be a better informed advocate for Global and National Public Health Systems to protect us it's important for us to be monitoring and controlling outbreaks in any animal population because that limits the number of chances for random mutations and recombination events it's one way that human health and Animal Health are intrinsically linked we should also be supporting surveillance systems that detect these changes early so we can react quickly from both a national security and a community health standpoint our local Wastewater surveillance Marin is the kind of asset that needs to be available more widely there's no need yet for anyone to be vaccinated against h5n1 but it's time to Prime the vaccine pipeline so that they can be manufactured rapidly at scale if this virus evolves into a pandemic strain for now some practical steps to protect yourselves locally is to avoid close contact with dead birds or dead livestock because we know people who have been infected are infected through close contact and only drink pasteurized milk the raw milk of infected cows carries large amounts of virus we're working with the Marin agricultural commission and our Veterinary providers to monitor the local situation closely and will continue to keep you informed about any relevant changes thank you for doing your part

Channel: MarinHHS

Views: 18,900

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Id: YsZeNkzZSgQ

Length: 6min 5sec (365 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024