For the Birds?

Amazingly,'Joe Public' seems to have quickly forgotten the devastation caused by zoonotic viruses. He also seems to have largely lost sight of their ability to rapidly mutate and find new hosts. Since October 2021, the highly infective H5N1 strain of bird 'flu, has killed at least 280 million birds. Infecting birds, makes the virus highly mobile. Even endangered Antarctic birds are now dying from H5N1 infections. In spite of its pandemic proportions, there's been remarkably little study on this viruse's potential effects on biodiversity, farming and human health (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/04/forgotten-epidemic-with-over-280-million-birds-dead-how-is-the-avian-flu-outbreak-evolving). Decimating diverse wild bird species will, of course, have profound impacts on many ecological systems. This is especially true of terrestrial locations. Birds, include insect eaters, raptors and carrion feeders. Rearing of domesticated farm birds, for meat and eggs, is also seriously imperiled by H5N1. Flocks are easily infected by wild birds. The chicken is a major provider of human protein. It's already known that bird 'flu has infected mammals. The virus has even been recorded in cow's milk. There's also been a few human infections by H5N1. At present, this has been limited to folk who closely working with birds (e.g. chicken farmers). This virus (or a further mutation of it) clearly has the potential to cause problems on the scale of Covid19. Substantial research is urgently needed.