World Health Organization Claims a New Strain of Bird Flu is Jumping to Humans 

This article originally appeared on CDM.press and was republished with permission.

Guest post by Christine Dolan

Fear-mongering pandemics seem to have a pattern. Starts with a small outbreak and ends up in a congressional hearing. Then it expands, powers-that-be mention more cases, animals to human jumps, and then a Head of State comments about preparations for the worst and orders up something to counteract. 

Sound familiar? Is that what we are witnessing now that The World Health Organization has raised the alarm that a new strain of bird flu has jumped to humans?

Officials have said that a 59-year-old man in Mexico died after battling a seven-day illness with fever, shortness of breath, diarrhea and nausea.

Tests showed the man was infected with a strain of bird flu called H5N2, marking the first time this type of virus has allegedly been detected in humans.

Officials have attested that any case of new bird flu strains spilling into humans can risk an outbreak.

Supposedly, this strain differs from the H5N1 bird flu that is currently among dairy herds in the U.S. and has already sickened three dairy workers. Two patients suffered from eye infections. A third patient had respiratory complications. 

The Mexican patient became ill on April 17 and stayed home. After a week of his symptoms worsening, he checked himself into the hospital where he died hours later. 

PCR tests, the same used for testing COVID-19, which were never to be used for COVID-19, were used on this patient after he died on April 24.

Initially, the tests revealed he had been infected with a flu virus. Later medical officials claimed that this patient had H5N2.

Now, we learn the patient had no connection to farming or poultry and was bedridden for three weeks prior to contracting the infection. It is unclear how he caught the virus or whether he spread it to others. The three other patients who had caught the H5N1 in the U.S. had a connection to farming and poultry. 

Officials said 17 people at the Mexico City hospital where this Mexican patient was treated and twelve neighbors — including seven who had signs of illness — all tested negative for the virus.

Blood tests are now being carried out to screen for antibodies against H5N2, which would indicate a previous infection.

Dr William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, who is close to Dr. Anthony Fauci, has stated the case was concerning but that it was likely that increasing cases are being detected due to a rise in the number of tests. That too sounds familiar. 

“We are looking very hard for bird flu infections, as a consequence of H5N1, around the world,” Schaffner stated.

He added he was surprised that someone not connected to poultry contracted the virus. 

In late May when the third Michigan farmer became infected with H5N1, President Joe Biden told vaccine manufacturers to start preparing for a pandemic. 

The Biden administration stated that it was on the verge of a deal to bankroll Moderna’s development of a vaccine against the disease.

Similar to Operation Warp Speed’s production, the U.S. government announced over a week ago it was looking to fund a late-stage trial of the mRNA shot, targeting the H5N1 strain. 

It is unclear how much that is costing but it is likely tens of millions of dollars.

H5N2 was first detected in poultry in the 1990s, and has also been detected in other animals including pigs. 

H5N1 has been detected in foxes to raccoons, skunks, cows, seals and deer.

Over 80 dairy herds have now tested positive for bird flu in the U.S., with Idaho reporting the highest number.

At the beginning of May, Dr. Robert Califf of the FDA told a Senate Committee that his agency was gearing up for a bird flu pandemic.

He testified that the U.S. government was drawing up plans to roll out tests, antiviral drugs and vaccines in the event the virus jumped to humans, which it had not at that time.

“This virus, like all viruses, is mutating,” Califf testified to U.S. lawmakers. “We need to continue to prepare for the possibility that it might jump to humans.”

The “ real worry is that it will jump to the human lungs where, when that has happened in other parts of the world… the mortality rate has been 25 percent.”

When Califf had testified a month ago, fragments of the virus had already been detected in products including one in five grocery store milks — as well as cottage cheese and sour cream.

But officials stated at that time these products were safe to consume because the virus inside them was inactivated during the pasteurization process.

“We gotta have testing, gotta have anti-virals and we need to have a vaccine ready to go,” Califf told the Agriculture Committee. “We have been busy getting prepared for if the virus does mutate in a way that allows it to jump into humans on a larger level.”

“Viruses are relatively simple, so coming up with a matching vaccine is entirely possible in a short period of time,” Califf noted. 

The U.S. has a stockpile of about 20million bird flu vaccines in its national stockpile, which are “well matched” to the H5N1 virus. 

There are also supplies of antivirals such as oseltamivir.

Califf’s statement was made after CDC officials had stated that bird flu had a “pandemic potential” in New England Journal of Medicine, and they forecasted rolling out vaccines if the bird flu virus had spilled over to humans.

Copyright 2024 Creative Destruction Media