Bird flu only gets media attention very briefly each time it either affects industrial poultry farming or poses a danger to establish itself in humans as a new virus strain. It usually stays limited to the flu season, too.
The current outbreak is different in a number of important ways, however. It has left the seasonality behind, has spread around the globe, and killed large numbers of other animals too, especially marine and coastal mammals. It is thus a lot more worrying than recent outbreaks, and could have implications ranging from species extinctions through to another human health crisis. Which is why I had a closer look at it in my latest feature which is out now:
A flying pandemic
Current Biology Volume 33, Issue 12, 19. June 2023, Pages R659-R662
Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)
Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)
See also my Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
Sandwich terns (Thalasseus sandvicensis) along the coasts of northern Europe have been suffering mass mortality in the current outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza. (Photo: Trish Hartmann/Flickr (CC BY 2.0).)
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