With Your Christmas Turkey?

Devi Sridhar (University of Edinburgh) is reminding folk about the distinct probability of a pandemic stemming from Bird 'flu. She notes that the H5N1 strain has made its way from birds to humans. This viral stain is also found in dairy cows and other mammals. Cow to cow transmission occurs and cows have passed Bird 'flu to humans. A recent study has suggested that a single mutation would make human to human tranmission possible. Fairly obviously, governments should be stocking up on anti-virals and developing vaccines. There's a problem in the US. Scientists need chicken's eggs to produce vaccines. Bird 'flu has decimated chicken stocks. There's a shortage of eggs (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/16/bird-flu-pandemic-threat-prepared) A human viral pandemic resulting from Bird 'flu could be much worse than Covid19. This species jump wouldn't be easy to delay via lockdowns, whilst effective vaccines are developed. This virus has wings.