The world's leading experts on influenza met this week to discuss the threat posed to humans by a strain of H5N1 avian flu that has caused record numbers of bird deaths around the world in recent months.
The group of scientists, regulators and vaccine manufacturers meets twice a year to decide which strain of seasonal flu to include in the vaccine for the coming winter season, in this case for the northern hemisphere.It is also a chance to discuss the risk of animal viruses spilling over to humans and causing a pandemic. At this week's meeting, H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b was a key topic, the World Health Organization and global flu experts told Reuters.
Briand in a briefing after the meeting said that the recent rise in cases in birds and mammals was "worrying" and that the agency was working with Cambodia after two confirmed human cases of H5N1 were found in one family there. They are trying to determine if the family members were exposed to the virus through the environment - such as exposure to birds or other mammals - or if there was human-to-human transmission.
Experts have been tracking H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b since it emerged in 2020 and recent reports of mass deaths in infected mammals from seals to bears, as well as potential mammal-to-mammal transmission on a Spanish mink farm last year, have raised concern. "This is a natural experiment playing out in front of us, and I don't think we are complacent," said Nicola Lewis, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Influenza at the Crick Institute in London. Speaking before the meeting, she said it would include assessments of the situation worldwide.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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