(NationalUSNews.com) — The world has only begun the work of rebuilding our social and economic structures after a worldwide pandemic, but some are predicting an even worse one to come.
Former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield, claims that a bird flu pandemic will be next. While there have only been a few cases of the bird flu in humans, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that a 59-year-old Mexican man recently died of the virus. Of the two other known cases, neither were fatal, and both were farmworkers, although they were separate incidents.
The bird flu is a strain of influenza A virus found in birds and sometimes other livestock. Redfield says that there have been steadily increasing cases of bird flu found in birds such as chickens, ducks, and turkeys in the U.S. since 2017. The CDC has confirmed that it has also been found in more than 40 cattle herds. While it is extremely contagious, there is currently no evidence that it has mutated to be transmissible between animals and humans yet.
Redfield says the real concern is that the virus could be grown in a lab and alterations could be made to it to make it highly infectious for humans. Redfield claims that he has done lab research on the virus and that only five amino acids must change for bird flu to bind to a human receptor. This would allow it to pass from person to person. He added that other scientists working on the experiments published their findings against his recommendations, so essentially, the “recipe” to make bird flu infectious in humans is already public.
Redfield warns that if the bird flu mutates in a way that it can be passed among the human population, it could result in a far deadlier pandemic than the last one. He claims that mortality for people infected with bird flu could be “somewhere between 25 and 50 percent.” In the meantime, bird flu found among commercially raised chickens and cows could have significant effects on food production and grocery prices. The largest producer of fresh eggs in the U.S. temporarily halted production at one of their plants after detecting bird flu in their chickens in April. It has also been found in dairy cows, but the CDC has assured the public that the pasteurization process renders the milk safe.
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