Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, predicting an inevitable bird flu pandemic, emphasized the potential for a man-made crisis due to published research on making the virus highly infectious in humans.
Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stated that he believes a bird flu pandemic will occur sometime; the question is when.
Redfield on Friday will talk about the burgeoning bird flu crisis, which has been brought to light by the discovery of the virus in numerous cattle across the nation and the World Health Organization’s confirmation of the first human death in Mexico.
“I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield stated.
Additionally, he mentioned that compared to COVID-19, bird flu has a “significant mortality” when it infects people. According to Redfield, the fatality rate is “probably somewhere between 25 and 50 percent.” According to NewsNation, the COVID-19 death rate was 0.6%.
The third human instance of the virus since March was discovered by the CDC at the end of May. The three farmworker incidents had nothing to do with one another. Pink eye and a cough without a fever have been among the symptoms.
As of now, there is no proof that the virus is contagious among people. Redfield claimed to have conducted lab study on the virus and to know exactly what has to occur for it to reach that stage.
According to Redfield, researchers have discovered that for bird flu to acquire the ability to attach to a human receptor and then spread from person to person, as COVID-19 did, five amino acids in the critical receptor must alter.
“Once the virus gains the ability to attach to the human receptor and then go human to human, that’s when you’re going to have the pandemic,” he stated. “And as I said, I think it’s just a matter of time.”
Redfield said he is a little concerned because it is being found in cattle herds all throughout the nation, but he doesn’t know how long it will take for the five amino acids to alter.
There have been verified incidences of the virus in more than 40 cattle herds countrywide. Although the CDC is monitoring wastewater treatment facilities to determine the virus’s exact location, it stated that there is currently little chance of infection among the general people.
There is reason for concern because cattle reside near pigs and the virus can spread from pigs to humans. Even yet, he contended, there is a higher chance that the illness was produced in a lab.
“I know exactly what amino acids I have to change because in 2012, against my recommendation, the scientists that did these experiments actually published them,” he said. “So, the recipe for how to make bird flu highly [infectious] for humans is already out there.”
Recently, GreatGameIndia reported that gain-of-function research, involving organizations like the USDA, CAS, and Roslin Institute, may explain the recent jump of bird flu, specifically the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, to cows and humans.
