Community Chat

[Mindy D]

Bird flu, technically avian influenza, usually infects and kills birds but has infected mammals before. It's the strain responsible for the culling of farm birds and the deaths a wild birds worldwide. More than half a million poultry birds were culled or died in the three weeks prior to the report about the polar bear. The virus has also been responsible for the deaths of 300 elephant seals in Argentina. The deadly strain in this case is H5N1.  In Alaska, the strain has killed a few foxes, a black bear and a brown bear. Other mammals in the area in Alaska where the body of the polar bear was found have tested positive since 2022. It is thought that the bear might have eaten a dead bird and caught the virus from in past years a small number of humans had caught the virus from directly handling infected birds. Due to the very high mortality rate of H5N1 it is constantly monitored in animals and humans. Humans infected in the Western Pacific Region from 2003-2023 had a case fatality rate of 56%. The last human case in this region was in Nov, 2023. There are other strains of avian influenza that have infected humans. 

[conlt]

I have Parrots and I regularly go to my Avian Veterinarian. They have a sign on the door forbidding anyone to bring a wild bird into the Veterinary Hospital. Bird flu is scary. I will tell you, I had H1N1 in 2009 and it was no joke. I was sick, sick, and short of breath for 6 months. I have scarring on my lungs from that episode. 

That was the year that the flu vaccine was in short supply. I had it the week before I got sick. My doctor said to me, "imagine how bad it would have been without some vaccine under your belt.: He was right, the experience was terrible. 

[skatting44]

@conlt 

Per NIH Pub Med  article

" A major challenge to pandemic vaccine production was timing. In spite of a rapid response, vaccines were neither available for widespread use during the 2009 winter season in the Southern Hemisphere nor until after the autumn/winter wave had nearly peaked in the Northern Hemisphere "

" Production of seasonal influenza vaccine for the 2009–2010 season was, however, already under way (reviewed in and the decision was made to produce a separate monovalent pandemic H1N1 vaccine." "Another challenge was availability. As of June 2009, the global capacity for seasonal vaccine production was only 876 million doses a year, with 7 manufacturers providing 64% of this capacity "

"Vaccine efficacy studies for the 2010/2011 trivalent influenza vaccines based on mid-season data analysis show evidence of some protection against confirmed 2009 H1N1, however the VEs are lower than the monovalent vaccines administered in 2009/10 (44.1 to 52%) ".

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3224079/