Emmanuel Emmanuel lost three birds in the Florida woods on February 12, 2009: a 44-year-old baby who is now being treated by an avian specialist
A family farm in South Florida has lost more than 50 birds in three days. The two birds were the only ones to survive.
“I am still trying to wrap my head around it,” Blake wrote. “We thought we were out of the woods, when Emmanuel unexpectedly went down this past Wednesday.”
Blake is looking for an avian specialist who can treat Emmanuel, who has suffered nerve damage in his right leg and foot, according to the Twitter thread. In the meantime, Blake posted a photo to Twitter of her helping Emmanuel start physical therapy using a homemade sling.
Scientists believe wild migratory birds brought the virus to North America at the beginning of the year and have spread the virus to more than 40 wild bird species. While chickens and turkeys with the virus quickly die, some waterfowl with the virus can remain healthy and carry it long distances.
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She stated on Monday that she was not looking to do any interviews, and that the last thing on her mind was doing interviews. My best friend is fighting for his life, and I’m just doing my absolute best not to crumble into a million pieces.”
The H5N1 flu strain can be transferred from one mammal to another, which is what an outbreak of bird flu in Spain shows.
The new variant puts bird flu in “uncharted territory”, says Wendy Puryear, a virologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Researchers have warned that, without careful precautions, the disease might eventually spread among people.
The United Kingdom declared an Aviation Influenza Prevention Zone on Monday, because of a bird flu outbreak that was the largest ever. Bird keepers in Great Britain will have to keep free-ranging birds within fenced areas and keep domestic ducks and geese separate from other poultry. Keepers also will need to regularly clean and disinfect their footwear.
The younger age group is being hit harder than usual this time of the year, says Alyson Kelvin, a vaccine and infectious disease organization researcher. Unusually, flu-based hospitalizations are currently higher for children aged 0–4 years than for people aged over 65.
There are several possible reasons for the spike in flu numbers. Robert Ware says some cases could be attributed to an immunity deficit in the population that occurred during the COVID-19 Pandemic. And the dominant subtype this year, influenza A subtype H3N2, is known to cause more severe illness than do other common strains. It is possible that previous or concurrent COVID-19 infections could cause more severe symptoms from other respiratory viruses.
It is not clear whether the number of flu cases in North America will continue to climb throughout December and January, creating a larger than usual disease burden, or whether a rapid increase early in the season will mean that the epidemic starts to decline earlier than usual.
There are 389,000 people who die of seasonal flu each year, most of them being over the age of 65.
The vast majority of flu samples gathered have been A(H3N2) — a subtype that first emerged in 1968 and has since become endemic. The virus subtype A(H3N2), which tends to evolve in ways that make it different than other types, is less effective against vaccine than other types. There are ways to make vaccines that are more effective.
Over the past year, H5N1 has shown an increasing ability to jump from birds to mammals. In the United States, there have been infections in a number of animals.
Measures taken to prevent the new strain from spreading beyond the farm seem to have been “vigorous, comprehensive and successful”, says infectious-disease specialist William Schaffner at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.