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Till date, no case of Bird Flu has been reported in human and the risk from H5N1 virus in humans are low but still comes to mind that whether it is going to be the next pandemic for humans as Coronavirus?

Coronavirus pandemic has already caused a big loss to whole world including India and even till now we are not completely out of danger from it, many states in India have reported death of thousands of birds because of Bird Flu due to different variants of another virus in past few days, caused Centre govt. to issue an alert to the states to monitor health of birds in forest areas and near water bodies.

Bird flu virus, scientifically called Avian Influenza or Influenza A virus, is highly infectious viral disease which shows symptoms from mild to severe. Different strains of bird flu virus have also been found, among them, H5N1, a deadly strain of bird flu virus, causes severe respiratory disease in birds, shows its continuous spread among poultry in Egypt and in certain parts of Asia which can be dangerous to humans and other mammals that comes in contact to the infected one.

From 2003 to 2019, WHO confirmed a total of 861 human cases of H5N1 worldwide, of which 455 (60% of human deaths) deaths were recorded. Although, transmission from human to human occurs rarely from H5N1 but those coming in close proximity to infected birds or its droppings got infected. 

Why bird flu virus is compared with corona virus?

With the outbreak of COVID-19 infection, researchers started comparing corona virus with the influenza virus, as numerous similarities have been found among them. Commonly, both the viruses cause respiratory disease which shows a broad-range illness from asymptomatic, mild to severe disease following death. Since both sharing the common mode of transmission i.e through contacts, droplets and fomites, the same precautionary measures such as hand hygiene are required to be taken to prevent infection. Having few similarities among them, these viruses also show some uncommon characteristics like, their speed of spread of infection are different form each other. Spread of Influenza virus infection takes 3 days and that of corona virus is 5-6 days from infection to symptoms, which is turn shows that the influenza virus infection is faster than corona virus, although the risk of infection is high in corona virus.

It has been reported that children, pregnant women are more prone of influenza virus transmission in the community while in COVID-19 virus, data reported that children are less prone than elder and immunosuppressed people for corona infection.

Bird flu: a cause for concern

According to the Bird Count India, a partnership comprising organisations and groups, over the past seven to few days, there have been reports of deaths of wild birds in separate incidents at different locations in the country.

Flu viruses are constantly changing in such a way, that increase their ability to infect people easily and spread the infection among people, causing a pandemic. Human infections with novel avian influenza virus like Asian H5N1 are concerning because of this pandemic potential. CDC  monitor and identify a virus with pandemic potential.

At the moment, no one knows whether these are causes of larger concern, but it is worth keeping an eye on the situation since IANS news also reported that any mutation might make it pandemic.

However, several healthcare authorities are saying “Not to panic” which makes the reaction normal to the unusual situation and many mental health services and some plans are also there that provide support in this crisis which is really helpful in today's requirement.