'100 times worse than Covid': Scientists warn of deadly H5N1 bird flu pandemic

Experts have raised concerns about the bird flu pandemic potentially spreading rapidly, with warnings that it could be far worse than Covid-19. According to the Daily Mail, during a recent briefing, researchers discussed the H5N1 strain of bird flu, highlighting its ability to infect a wide range of mammals, including humans. 

Dr. Suresh Kuchipudi, a prominent bird flu researcher in Pittsburgh, emphasized the virus's pandemic potential. “We are getting dangerously close to this virus potentially causing a pandemic,” he said.

“We are not really talking about a virus that is yet to make a jump, we are talking about a virus that is globally present, already infecting a range of mammals and is circulating… It is really high time that we are prepared,” Dr Kuchipudi said during the briefing.

Another expert, John Fulton, highlighted that the H5N1 pandemic could be much more severe than the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fulton, who is a pharmaceutical company consultant, said, “This appears to be 100 times worse than Covid, or it could be if it mutates and maintains its high case fatality rate. Once it’s mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops.”

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the H5N1 virus has resulted in a fatality rate of over 50% since 2003, with 52 out of every 100 infected patients succumbing to the virus. In contrast, the current fatality rate for Covid-19 is 0.1%, significantly lower than its initial rate of 20% at the onset of the pandemic.

WHO data indicates that out of the 887 reported cases of bird flu, 462 deaths have been recorded.

The Daily Mail report follows recent outbreaks of avian flu in a poultry facility in Michigan and an egg producer in Texas. Additionally, there have been reports of dairy cows contracting bird flu, as well as the first documented case of a human contracting the virus from a mammal.