For the first time, bird flu has killed a human patient in the United States. Beyond this dramatic news, several experts have estimated for months that American health authorities are not sufficiently aware of this public health threat.
“We haven’t really made an effort to limit” the outbreak of avian flu on American cattle farms, Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans told AFP.
At the cost of a new pandemic, five years after the appearance of COVID-19? “It could start like this,” warns Mme Koopmans, while emphasizing that the general public should not panic in the current state of affairs.
For now, the avian flu outbreak is limited to animals. The sixty human cases recorded in the United States, including the one who died in recent days, were caused by direct exposure to an animal and the World Health Organization (WHO) makes it clear that no transmission between humans has been reported. been recorded.
But recent developments in the H5N1 virus, the cause of this disease, worry researchers. Identified in 1996, it has long only threatened birds, millions of which have died since the current epidemic began in 2020.
This is no longer the case. The virus is now circulating among mammals including, since March 2024, cattle farms in the United States.
Certainly, the patient who died in the United States, a relatively old man and hospitalized since December, had not been in contact with cattle, but with birds. However, the ability of the virus to mutate to reach mammals appears potentially dangerous, with the aim of possible contamination one day from one human to another.
Opaque communication
According to a study made public on Monday – but which was not published by a scientific journal and reviewed independently – mutations of the virus in cattle are indeed likely to promote infection in humans.
For one of its authors, Tom Peacock, virologist at Imperial College London, “the United States’ biggest mistake was its slow and weak response to the epidemic in cattle”.
The reason why avian flu is affecting cattle farms in the country appears to be a combination of this weak initial response, poor biosecurity, and “the intensification of U.S. dairy farming, which involves far more movement of animals than in the system.” European,” he said.
Many experts also criticize the United States for not carrying out sufficient health surveillance of farms, and for communicating opaquely about the current epidemic.
“There are tons of data that the current government has not made public,” regretted Monday the virologist Rick Bright, who held responsibilities within the American health authorities, with the Washington Post.
The expert calls for authorizing the deployment of anti-H5N1 vaccines, currently stockpiled by the millions in the United States, to agricultural workers and other at-risk populations.
The calls for action are all the more pressing as President Joe Biden’s administration is leaving before Donald Trump takes office, who is due to return to the White House on January 20.
However, Mr. Trump chose as Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who holds both anti-vaccine and favorable positions for the consumption of raw milk, which we know is easily contaminated by the virus. bird flu.
The current government seems to have recently been quicker to act. Last week, he released more than $300 million to support surveillance and research into the avian flu outbreak.
And some experts refuse to cast stones at it: the United States “conducts significant surveillance,” said Margaret Harris, WHO spokesperson, to AFP. “That’s why we hear about it. »
