Senior health officials have warned bird flu could spark the next pandemic, following a recent ‘twist in the story’.
Richard Pebody, director of epidemic and emerging infections at The UK Health Security Agency, said the strain of the virus causing concern, H5N1, has the potential to spark a global emergency similar to Covid.
‘H5N1 has the potential to become a pandemic, a future pandemic,’ he said in Manchester today.
His comments come after a case of the virus was detected in a sheep in northern England yesterday, the first known case of its kind in the world.
Commenting on that leap between species, Mr Peabody said it was part of how bird flu had changed, compared to when it first emerged in the 1990s.
‘Over the past three or four years, its features have changed,’ he said.
‘We’re seeing it in the States, in dairy cattle, in other animals species, and we’re also seeing it here in the UK, and so we’re working very closely with colleagues on the animal health side to make sure that the human health side is protected.’
Asked if UKHSA’s assessment of bird flu had changed in light of the recent case, Mr Peabody said it was ‘a new twist to the story’, but added it was reassuring that further infections sheep hadn’t been found.
He added: ‘As always, it goes into this active, ongoing risk assessment,’ he said. ‘At the moment, that hasn’t necessarily changed.’
His comments come after UKHSA issued a stark warning about 24 deadly viruses that could trigger the next ‘Disease X’ — a term often used to describe the potential culprit behind the next pandemic.
The body has narrowed the deadliest down to four pathogens it classified as a high pandemic risk — with bird flu one of those which made the cut.
The virus, which has shown a concerning ability to jump between species, has already been detected in one British farmer who is known to have had contact with infected birds.
Meanwhile, the disease claimed its first human victim in the US back in January, killing a 65-year-old with underlying health conditions who was exposed to a personal flock of wild birds.
Another pathogen to make the list is a measles-like virus that could be ‘considerably more dangerous than Covid’, according to experts
A leading scientist warned the UKHSA list includes viruses that could be ‘impossible to control by even the strictest lockdown’.
Such is the concern that the Government announced the launch of a new reference document that will be constantly updated, to keep scientists and researchers up to date with the latest threats.
One alarming pathogen is that of the Picornaviridae family, which cause a type of virus that triggers polio-like diseases.
An example, is a disease called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), a rare condition which triggers muscle weakness and paralysis.
In January, a 15-year-old boy from Rochdale was left paralysed after contracting AFM, the BBC reported.
Health chiefs have also warned that viruses of the Paramyxoviridae family may also have pandemic potential.
These include measles, mumps and some respiratory tract infections, as well as the Nipah virus — which can spread from bats or pigs to humans — and causes brain swelling and death.
Large measles outbreaks have already been reported around the world as vaccination rates decline.
Last year, 2,911 cases of measles were confirmed in England, the highest number of cases recorded annually, since 2012.
Complications of the deadly illness, that mostly affects children, can include pneumonia, eye inflammation and vision loss as well as brain inflammation, leading to seizures, hearing loss and brain damage.
Other viruses that are ‘on watch’ by officials include coronaviruses such as Covid-19 and MERS, which has so far killed more than 900 people, mostly in the Middle East.
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious diseases at University of Edinburgh, told The Mirror that scientists are most concerned about a measles-type virus.
‘A novel measles-like virus would pose a threat far worse than Covid,’ he said.
‘Such a virus would have a much higher R number than the original variants of Covid – making it impossible to control by even the strictest lockdown.’
An R number describes the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average.
‘This is the kind of pandemic that public health agencies around the world are most concerned about,’ he added.
Measles cases have been shown to wipe the memory of our immune systems, meaning a large outbreak could see a national rise in other infections.
A 2019 Harvard Medical School study showed measles wiped out up to 75 per cent of antibodies protecting against the viruses or bacteria that a child was previously immune to.
Dr Isabel Oliver, Chief Scientific Officer for UKHSA, said the new virus list is a tool to highlight how scientific research can be targeted to increase UK preparedness against health threats.
‘We are using the tool as part of our conversations with the scientific community, to help ensure that investment is focused to where it can have the biggest impact.
‘We hope this will help to speed up vaccine and diagnostics development where it is most needed, to ensure we are fully prepared in our fight against potentially deadly pathogens.’
In September 2019, now-defunct Public Health England also reported that increasing antibiotic resistance of bacteria, could also turn into a potential Disease X.
