A Malignant Flu May Soon Evolve to Infect and Kill Humans, Report Says
Story by Tim Newcomb
A malignant flu may soon spread from birds to infect and kill humans. Scientists fear a mammal-to-mammal transmission could lead to global catastrophe.
A malignant flu may soon spread from birds to infect and kill humans. Scientists fear a mammal-to-mammal transmission could lead to global catastrophe.
A mink farm in Spain is the site of concerning research regarding the spread of avian influenza.
Researchers believe the bird flu was transmitted across minks in the farm—a troubling mammal-to-mammal spread.
The outbreak at the mink farm opens a new worry for health researchers.
Last fall, on a mink farm in Spain, H5N1 (avian influenza) likely spread across the animals. The outbreak resulted in the death or culling of the entire group of 50,000 minks.
Why should you care? Because it may have marked the first known case of mammal-to-mammal transmission of the deadly virus known as the bird flu, according to a new study. And that doesn’t portend anything good for humans.
The bird flu has proven scary enough with its occasional spreads from birds to mammals of all sorts, but the study published in Eurosurveillance calls the latest devastation of mink sicknesses and deaths especially concerning. “Our findings also indicate that an onward transmission of the virus to other minks may have taken place in the affected farm,” the study authors write.
