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Bird flu infects another Sioux County dairy farm • Iowa Capital Dispatch (iowacapitaldispatch.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Keep in mind that testing volumes are rather low. The number of cases is like higher than what we're seeing reported. Both for cows, humans, and other species. In general, other species than cows have not fared as well:

One month ago:

More than half of cats around the first Texas dairy farm to test positive for bird flu this spring died after drinking raw milk from the infected cows, scientists reported this week

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cats-died-after-drinking-milk-bird-flu-infected-cows/

In general, at least with previous variants of H5N1, it's usually seen an ~50% mortality rate in humans. Its possible the current spreading variant could be different, but we should not undermine its potential to be very deadly.

But in the hundreds of cases where humans have been infected through contact with animals over the past 20 years, “the mortality rate is extraordinarily high”, Farrar said, because humans have no natural immunity to the virus.

From 2003 to 2024, 889 cases and 463 deaths caused by H5N1 have been reported worldwide from 23 countries, according to the WHO, putting the case fatality rate at 52%.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/18/risk-bird-flu-spreading-humans-enormous-concern-who

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

What you're saying is all true. It's also true that that 50% mortality rate is almost certainly also heavily skewed because of a lack of testing, meaning that fatal cases are much more likely to be tested for the specific variant responsible. This is even more probable given the overwhelming majority of cases and deaths over the past 20 years have occurred in developing nations, in the same way the overwhelming majority of all flu deaths occur in developing nations. It remains to be seen what the actual case fatality rate is, which due to the rarity of infection we won't be able to determine unless it starts passing between humans.

Over 700,000 people die every year from common variants of the flu, where 463 people total have died over the past 20 years from H5N1. We should always be working to reduce flu mortality, and this H5N1 outbreak is certainly something to watch closely and be prepared for potentialities, but also the sky is not falling.