Top RI Doctor Chan Ranks Threat to Rhode Islanders From Bird Flu
Top RI Doctor Chan Ranks Threat to Rhode Islanders From Bird Flu
This week, Dr. Chan ranked the health threat to Rhode Islanders from the bird flu and outlined what people need to know.
"The bird flu is also called avian influenza or h5n1 flu, and it refers to specific flu virus strains that especially infect wild birds. So we're talking about ducks, seagulls, shore birds, as well as — domestic poultry, like chickens and turkeys, and it can be quite serious in these populations," said Dr. Chan.
Americans feel the economic impact of the bird flu. The cost of eggs has increased by over 50% in the past year.
“[The bird flu] is one of the contributing factors to high prices of, say, eggs and, yes, across the country, there has been this bird flu that's been identified in poultry, chickens, populations that has resulted in some of these flocks having to be killed unfortunately,” said Dr. Chan.
“The reason why we care about bird flu — it has actually been around for 20 years — and this specific strain H5N1, the reason why we care is because the World Health Organization across the world has monitored bird flu and for the last 20 years and they found that about 50% of people who have contracted H5N1 across the world, who are known to have had it, have actually died from it,’ said Dr. Chan.
Human-to-Human Risk
“So the good news is that there's been no identified human-to-human transmission cases of bird flu. So that's great news. Our big concern is if humans start spreading flu to each other, but so far, there's been no human-to-human cases in the U.S.,” said Dr. Chan.
Across the United States, the number of confirmed human cases remains low.
“There's been 70 total H5N1 bird flu cases. There's been one person that died in Louisiana, but that person had significant medical comorbidities — they were sort of sick at baseline. So the risk in general to the population is low,” said Dr. Chan.
“That being said, we do need to watch this because, in the past, this was how flu pandemics started. They've started with flu strains circulating in birds and pigs and cows and then eventually transmitting to humans. These more pathogenic strains that have caused human pandemic outbreaks of the flu,” added Dr. Chan.
Dr. Chan said, “Listen, for the average Rhode Islander, this should be the very lowest thing on your list to worry about.”
CDC Report
Dr. Chan points to some positive signs from some data from the CDC.
“I'm somewhat optimistic and a little bit less concerned, to be honest, about the bird flu, and the reason why I say that is because even remembering back to the H1N1 pandemic outbreak a couple of decades ago. You know, the initial reports of the H1N1 flu when that initially started was a very high mortality rate as well and one thing that often goes under-recognized early on in these infectious disease outbreaks — Covid, by the way — is all the people who have it but don't know they have it,” said Dr. Chan.
“In fact, the CDC did a study and released a report about a week and a half ago that showed that there is some very low level of circulating asymptomatic no symptoms people with bird flu among people who routinely interact with birds and cows,” said Dr. Chan.
Warnings
Dr. Chan urged people to keep their pets away from dead birds. Cats are very susceptible to the bird flu, and the mortality rate is very high.