A well-established virus with a high fatality rate is raising fears of a new pandemic, prompting experts to warn about the urgent need for strong public health measures
A well established virus is sparking fears that it might spread a lead into a new pandemic. Fears are growing as the illness has a staggering 48% fatality rate in humans.
Fears over a potential bird flu pandemic have ignited boffins in India to run chilling simulations showing how a deadly H5N1 outbreak could explode among humans. Using real-world data and high-tech modelling, researchers at Ashoka University have revealed exactly how quickly the virus could spiral out of control, and what urgent action is needed to stop it in its tracks.
“The threat of an H5N1 pandemic in humans is a genuine one, but we can hope to forestall it through better surveillance and a more nimble public-health response,” Professor Menon told the BBC.
The scientists reportedly turned to BharatSim, a powerful simulation tool originally built for Covid, to map out how bird flu might rip through a community. Their findings are a wake-up call for decision-makers: the window to act is frighteningly slim before the virus spirals out of control.
According to the research, if quick quarantines are put in place when just two people fall ill, the spread can be stamped out, the BBC reported. But let the number of cases creep up to 10, and it’s almost certain the infection will have already slipped the net, spreading far beyond immediate contacts and making containment nearly impossible.
To keep things realistic, the team modelled a typical village in Tamil Nadu’s poultry heartland, home to 1,600 farms and 70 million chickens, using a computer-generated community of nearly 10,000 people. The simulation started with a single infected bird at a farm or market, then tracked how the virus would jump from workers (primary contacts) to their families and friends (secondary contacts), and beyond.
The researchers looked at how fast the virus could spread, and tested different ways to stop it, like culling birds, quarantining households, or rolling out targeted vaccines. Nevertheless, culling chickens only works if it’s done before the virus infects a person.
Once the disease jumps to humans, timing is everything. Isolating the sick and quarantining their households can halt the outbreak at the secondary stage, but if it gets to friends of friends, so-called tertiary contacts, then only drastic measures like lockdowns have any hope of stopping it.
Vaccines help raise the bar for the virus, but don’t do much to stop it spreading within homes. However, quarantining too soon means families are stuck together for ages, which can actually help the virus spread among them.
The researchers warn their model has limits: it’s based on just one village, doesn’t factor in outbreaks from migratory birds or poultry trade, and ignores changes in behaviour like mask-wearing once people realise birds are dying. Virologist Dr Seema Lakdawala from Emory University in Atlanta points out another flaw: the simulation “assumes a very efficient transmission of influenza viruses”.
She notes, “Transmission is complex and not every strain will have the same efficiency as another,” and adds that new studies show only a “subset of flu-positive individuals actually shed infectious influenza virus into the air”. This means not everyone is a super-spreader, as we saw with Covid.
If H5N1 does manage to take hold in humans, Dr Lakdawala reckons it “will cause a large disruption likely more similar to the 2009 [swine flu] pandemic rather than Covid-19”. She explains, “This is because we are more prepared for an influenza pandemic.
“We have known licensed antivirals that are effective against the H5N1 strains as an early defence and stockpiled candidate H5 vaccines that could be deployed in the short term.” But she warns against getting complacent, saying if H5N1 mixes with other strains, it could lead to “chaotic and unpredictable seasonal epidemics”.
The Indian scientists say their simulations can be updated in real time as new data comes in, potentially giving health officials a crucial head start in the race to contain a deadly outbreak, before it’s too late.
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