Experts are anxious that bird flu could become airborne — and jump-start another pandemic

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Could H5N1 bird flu become airborne and spread between people? Scientists say that’s still unknown. But, if the virus gains that ability, it could produce the next pandemic.

The virus has been tearing across the U.S. in recent months, resulting in the culling of millions of birds, sending egg prices skyrocketing, infecting dozens of humans, and killing one person in Louisiana.

H5N1 does not have the ability to transmit from person to person, researchers say, and health officials have stressed that the risk to Americans remains mild.

Doug Corwin, owner of Crescent Duck Farm, carries a female duck used for breeding in 2014 in Aquebogue, New York. Millions of birds have been killed in response to the spread of H5N1 bird flu. While the virus hasn’t spread between humans, scientists worry about it spreading while airborne (AP)

Still, many are worried about the nation’s response. Especially considering data from the World Health Organization finding that, of the cases reported in the Western Pacific Region from January 2003 through this past September, there was a fatality rate of 54 percent. Furthermore, the Trump administration has instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop working with the intergovernmental organization. Its halt of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weekly Scientific Report has stalled some related research, according to KFF Health News.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has recommended an additional half a million dollars in state spending to support the development of vaccines for bird flu and other foreign animal diseases, according to RadioIowa. “Think about it going from birds to hogs,” the Republican said.”I mean just this past year it went to dairy. It’s scary the impact it could have not only on the food supply chain, but just to people as well.”

In response to the threat, MassLive reported that Massachusetts-based Moderna would likely be the first to manufacture a vaccine.

Tracking viral shifts could also be crucial to preventing negative outcomes in the future. It took more than two years for the WHO to recognize that Covid spread through the air. Last March, the Department of Agriculture discovered that cows infected with H5N1 could possibly pass the virus to people through droplets from milking machinery.

“Having that evidence is really important ahead of time, so that we don’t wind up in the same situation when Covid emerged, where everyone was scrambling to figure out how the virus was transmitted,” Kristen Coleman, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Maryland, told The New York Times on Monday.

Previous research found that an H5N1 flu virus from an infected farm worker could transmit through airborne droplets and was lethal in mice and ferrets. The findings suggest that the human virus may transmit more efficiently via droplets than viruses from cattle, although the efficiency of its transmission was limited.

Another late-2024 study found that viral shedding, the expulsion of viral particles, in the air related to transmissibility in mammals. A virus of H5N1 from an infected Texas dairy worker showed a low but increased ability to transmit by air compared with older strains.

In this photo illustration, eggs sit in a container last month in Miami, Florida. Grocery stores across the nation are running short on eggs amid the spread of H5N1 bird flu (Getty Images)

While bird flu mainly spreads from oral-to-fecal routes in birds, University of Florida microbiologist Dr. John Lednicky said that between mammals is different.

“In Asia, people buy live birds at markets where they are plucked. The plucking has been shown to aerosolize virus from the feathers. Or birds poop in crowded markets. And there may be fans or air currents in the markets that move that airborne virus around. People may breathe it in,” he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends standard, contact, and airborne precautions for patients who have illness consistent with influenza who have had recent exposure to birds or other animals potentially infected with bird flu.

Dr. Sander Herfst, who worked on the December ferret study, found that a few mutations had allowed bird flu to become airborne. Exactly how influenza spreads through the air, however, is unclear.

“Very basic knowledge is indeed missing,” he told The Times.