WHO: Zoonotic Animal Pandemic (bird flu)

[Wigberto Marciaga]

As the title says, the WHO has considered bird flu a zoonotic pandemic.

https://odishabytes.com/who-sounds-alarm-over-human-cases-of-bird-flu-flags-global-zoonotic-animal-pandemic/

Let us remember that the coronavirus pandemic has not ended, but rather the alert level regarding it was reduced, if I am not mistaken. Now we have a second pandemic, it seems, in about 4 years.

Avian flu can affect in many ways, such as affecting food production. But, it has also been mentioned that there is a risk that it could end up being a direct threat to humans.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, Wigberto Marciaga said:

Let us remember that the coronavirus pandemic has not ended, but rather the alert level regarding it was reduced, if I am not mistaken. Now we have a second pandemic, it seems, in about 4 years.

I think you missed a critical word in the statement. They said it was an animal pandemic, as in it is a pandemic among animals (specifically birds). It is not a human pandemic as human-to-human transmissions have not been documented yet, I believe. There are quite a few diseases circulating among e.g. migrating animals that are spreading, but most are not yet relevant to humans.

[Wigberto Marciaga]

6 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I think you missed a critical word in the statement. They said it was an animal pandemic, as in it is a pandemic among animals (specifically birds). It is not a human pandemic as human-to-human transmissions have not been documented yet, I believe. There are quite a few diseases circulating among e.g. migrating animals that are spreading, but most are not yet relevant to humans.

It seems to me that there is an error. Zoonosis refers to transmission between species, it seems to me. Although it is not yet so dangerous for humans, it can affect food production by infected animals, both birds and mammals. However, in the news that I published, the concern presented by the WHO representative is because it could become a direct danger to humans.

[CharonY]

No, it is a zoonotic disease as in there have been limited incidences in the spread from animal to human. That part is correct. But it is currently an animal pandemic as opposed to a human pandemic.

[Wigberto Marciaga]

12 hours ago, CharonY said:

No, it is a zoonotic disease as in there have been limited incidences in the spread from animal to human. That part is correct. But it is currently an animal pandemic as opposed to a human pandemic.

At least we understand that it is a topic of human interest?

WHO: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148696

[CharonY]

Yes of course, zoonotic disease are an ongoing concern. COVID-19 was one. It is just not a pandemic as COVID-19 is, as suggested in OP.

[Wigberto Marciaga]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

Yes of course, zoonotic disease are an ongoing concern. COVID-19 was one. It is just not a pandemic as COVID-19 is, as suggested in OP.

It seems to you that I was comparing it to the coronavirus in that aspect. What I was saying is that there is a pandemic that puts humans at risk, but not that it was identical to the coronavirus.

Maybe I didn't know how to present the idea. But, it seems to me that this zoonotic pandemic thing is not something that happens every weekend either.

I suppose that it is because of the risk of spreading between humans that WHO representatives have expressed being very concerned.

Blessing.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, Wigberto Marciaga said:

Maybe I didn't know how to present the idea. But, it seems to me that this zoonotic pandemic thing is not something that happens every weekend either.

You keep mixing up concepts (or using them in a bit sloppy manner) which confused matters a fair bit. To clarify things here are some rough definitions and relevant context.

Zoonotic disease: infectious disease that can cross from non-humans to humans. They are very common and happen certainly more frequently than once a weekend. A very common infection is for example salmonellosis.

Pandemic: generally refers to wide spread of an epidemic crossing international boundaries (especially spanning continents) and typically affecting large-ish number of people. It does not refer, for example, to severity. 

Using these definitions in OP refers to an animal pandemic (i.e. a large number of animals affected over a large area), but it is not a human pandemic, as there are only few jumps to humans. Any zoonotic infection can be a source of worry as mutations over time could lead to human to human infections (such as the case with swine flu and SARS-CoV-2 and ebola) but certainly it cannot be a human pandemic at the current state.

 

[Wigberto Marciaga]

9 minutes ago, CharonY said:

You keep mixing up concepts (or using them in a bit sloppy manner) which confused matters a fair bit. To clarify things here are some rough definitions and relevant context.

Zoonotic disease: infectious disease that can cross from non-humans to humans. They are very common and happen certainly more frequently than once a weekend. A very common infection is for example salmonellosis.

Pandemic: generally refers to wide spread of an epidemic crossing international boundaries (especially spanning continents) and typically affecting large-ish number of people. It does not refer, for example, to severity. 

Using these definitions in OP refers to an animal pandemic (i.e. a large number of animals affected over a large area), but it is not a human pandemic, as there are only few jumps to humans. Any zoonotic infection can be a source of worry as mutations over time could lead to human to human infections (such as the case with swine flu and SARS-CoV-2 and ebola) but certainly it cannot be a human pandemic at the current state.

 

Of course, it is a zoonotic pandemic that has no human-to-human transmission. But neither is the usual or routine, unless you suggest that the WHO is being alarmist.

Edited April 19 by Wigberto Marciaga

[CharonY]

Just now, Wigberto Marciaga said:

Of course, it is a zoonotic pandemic that has no human-to-human transmission. But it's also not the opposite of usual or routine, unless you're suggesting that the WHO is being alarmist.

You are missing my point entirely. I am saying you keep mixing up terms and using them in a wrong way. What we have here are zoonotic outbreaks, not pandemics. I.e. if you changed the word in the above quote, you would be accurate. Calling it pandemic in this context is just wrong from a technical viewpoint. 

And every potential jump from animal influenza to humans is worrisome, regardless of scope. The reason is that it keeps mixing in animals, including farm animals and there is a chance of new variants that might be able to spread human to human. An important example was the 2009 swine flu pandemic, where H1N1 jumped to human (and pig-human is an expected route due to many similarities between these species) and spread from human to human. 

 

[Wigberto Marciaga]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

You are missing my point entirely. I am saying you keep mixing up terms and using them in a wrong way. What we have here are zoonotic outbreaks, not pandemics. I.e. if you changed the word in the above quote, you would be accurate. Calling it pandemic in this context is just wrong from a technical viewpoint. 

And every potential jump from animal influenza to humans is worrisome, regardless of scope. The reason is that it keeps mixing in animals, including farm animals and there is a chance of new variants that might be able to spread human to human. An important example was the 2009 swine flu pandemic, where H1N1 jumped to human (and pig-human is an expected route due to many similarities between these species) and spread from human to human. 

 

The term is not from me, the person responsible for the UN on these issues has called it a pandemic. That's the news.

Quote

Dr. Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), said that the avian influenza virus, which is also known as H5N1, has had an “extremely high” mortality rate among the several hundred people known to have been infected with it to date. However, no human-to-human H5N1 transmission has yet been recorded. “H5N1 is (an) influenza infection, predominantly started in poultry and ducks and has spread effectively over the course of the last one or two years to become a global zoonotic – animal – pandemic,” he said.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148696

It seems that what happened is that you did not read the news, but I am sharing the quote with you this CharonY.

From the initial comment I have recognized that it does not directly affect humans, although it could indirectly affect animal production. But, according to the news, there is some risk that it will end up directly affecting humans (Like a pandemic).

Edited April 19 by Wigberto Marciaga

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, Wigberto Marciaga said:

The term is not from me, the person responsible for the UN on these issues has called it a pandemic. That's the news.

 

23 hours ago, CharonY said:

They said it was an animal pandemic, as in it is a pandemic among animals (specifically birds). It is not a human pandemic

 

19 hours ago, CharonY said:

But it is currently an animal pandemic as opposed to a human pandemic.

 

3 hours ago, CharonY said:

Using these definitions in OP refers to an animal pandemic (i.e. a large number of animals affected over a large area), but it is not a human pandemic,

Gosh, I must say either I am not communicating clearly or you have to increase your reading comprehension. He said it is an animal pandemic.  Do you understand the difference if he only said "pandemic" without the qualifier?

Or in other words, do you think that we can use the terms animal pandemic and pandemic in the given context interchangeably? 

 

[Wigberto Marciaga]

Ok, I can't edit it to place the word "animal" on the first line of the text. I understand that my comment seems confusing.

On the other hand, why do you say that, are you religious? I understand that it's probably a figure of speech, but I don't understand why you have to write it.

Edited April 19 by Wigberto Marciaga

[CharonY]

6 hours ago, Wigberto Marciaga said:

On the other hand, why do you say that, are you religious?

What does it have to do with anything? I say that because scientific terms have specific meanings. Or don't you think that in the context of public health a pandemic affecting birds is the same as a pandemic affecting humans? 

I mean for an ecological discussion this would be a alright starting point, but certainly not if the context is public health, which is assumed if one mentions the WHO.

Edit: perhaps that is what you are confused about. In the medical field (other than veterinary medicine) the baseline is the effect on humans. Hence, if public health officials talk about pandemics or outbreaks, they imply outbreaks and pandemic affecting humans. But if they talk about zoonotic events, the movements of animals becomes relevant (e.g. to outline that human risk is not localized). This is in fact what the article is saying, they the virus is widespread as it is an animal pandemic (widespread in animals). If the health officer had said that it was a "pandemic" without the animal qualifier, the assumption would be large spread in human population over wide geographic areas. I cannot believe that it took so many posts to emphasize that.

[Wigberto Marciaga]

Yes, I understand it is more precisely a pandemic among animals with zonotic capacity.

It is not transmitted from human to human, it does not directly affect humans. It indirectly affects the production of meat foods. This pandemic does not directly affect humans.

But the WHO is more concerned that it will become a direct problem for humans.

ok?

[CharonY]

One recent worrying finding is that a cat was found to be infected, likely due to consumption of contaminated raw milk. I.e. the virus might get better at jumping from mammal to mammal, which obviously is really bad news for us (humans). https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/7/24-0508_article