The first cases of H5N8 bird flu in humans remind us that Covid-19 is just a ‘dress rehearsal’ and farming is the epicentre
The UK government has just announced an end of all major lockdown restrictions in time for the summer, yet the news that the first cases of H5N8 in humans - at a bird farm in Russia - only serves to remind us that it is only a matter of time before a worse pandemic strikes.
Workers at a ‘poultry’ farm in Russia have tested positive for H5N8, the first time the strain of bird flu has been detected in humans. According to the Guardian, there is no evidence of it having passed from human to human, only from birds to humans, but it is significant enough to have been reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Speaking to the Guardian, Dr Anna Popova, head of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said there were no signs of H5N8 having passed between the workers, “only time will tell how soon future mutations will allow it to overcome this barrier”.
Dr Michael Greger in a podcast with Surge co-director Ed Winters warned that avian influenza had the potential to be many times more transmissible and deadly than coronaviruses such as those that caused Covid-19, SARS and MERS.
“The last time a bird flu jumped species and spread easily from human to human, it triggered the deadliest plague in history, the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million people,” said Dr Greger writing for Surge. “Evidence now suggests that all pandemic influenza viruses - in fact, all human and mammalian flu viruses in general - owe their origins to avian influenza, and we now have bird flu viruses like H5N1 and H7N9 poised to kill millions around the world should they lock in the necessary mutations to spread easily from human to human.
Now we can add H5N8 to the list of strains of influenza on the cusp of mutating to become transmissible between humans. While the workers infected in Russia reportedly now feel well with no further developments, there is little way of knowing how H5N8 or any novel strain of bird flu would affect populations including the young, elderly and vulnerable persons with underlying health issues.
Farming is central to the threat posed by future pandemics, with all the major outbreaks of modern times tracing their zoonotic origins back to human exploitation of animals, as we revealed in our Covid-19 and animal exploitation: preventing the next global pandemic white paper. Flu viruses are particularly predisposed to mutations, more so than coronaviruses and other types of virus, and farms provide the perfect unsanitary melting pot for human, swine and avian influenza viruses to mix and produce novel zoonoses. Factory farms in particular recreate the ‘trench conditions’ of the First World War that gave rise to the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed millions across the world.
“There will be more pandemics, and there is a feeling among some scientists that this could just be a dress rehearsal for the real big pandemic.”
Speaking to the Independent last month, Professor Aliza le Roux, associate professor of zoology at the University of the Free State, said: “Our demand for meat is driving cheaper and less controlled agricultural practices, cramming more animals into smaller spaces, feeding them less and less natural fodder.”
Professor Robert Bragg, from the UFS’ department of microbial, biochemical and food biotechnology, said: “There will be more pandemics, and there is a feeling among some scientists that this could just be a dress rehearsal for the real big pandemic.”
To think that Covid-19 could one day pale in comparison to an avian flu pandemic and that one could emerge at any time from any number of strains already detected at farms across the world is terrifying. Closer to home, H5N8, the same subtype that infected the Russian workers, has been detected at a farm in North Yorkshire, UK, resulting in the culling of an entire flock of chickens; while H5N1 has been confirmed in Scotland. When any one of these mutates and runs rampant among human populations, we’ll look back and miss the days of Covid lockdowns and point the finger at politicians for ignoring the many warning signs and the recommendations from the CDC, WHO, FAO and other leading health experts. But the blame can’t only be on governments when it is us, the everyday consumer, who chooses to turn a blind eye all so that we can return to the status quo, whatever that means.
It is down to all of us to demand a shift away from animal agriculture and towards plant-based alternatives for food production, where the conditions for new zoonotic diseases to emerge are virtually non-existent.
So if you read with excitement the news that music festivals will be back on for the summer and you’re already planning your first night out with your friends, don’t count on it lasting for very long if you insist on supporting the exploitation of animals on vast scales. When people around you are dying from bird flu, will you only then put down the chicken burger and realise the part you played?
Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager at Surge.
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