European health officials have changed their bird-flu tracking system‚ as winter 2024-25 brings new worries. Dr Angeliki Melidou from ECDC says theyʼre watching the situation real close
The main issue: seasonal flu might mix with H5N1 bird flu to create something worse (like what happened with swine flu back in 2009). A health-data company says this mixing risk is 5 times higher in winter than summer
Since early 2020s‚ H5N1 has shown up in lots of animals:
- Farm birds
- Wild foxes
- Mink groups
- Sea animals
- Coastal birds
This fall many birds near Atlantic Ocean Baltic Sea and North Sea got sick; which doesnt look good. The US has seen more than 50 people catch H5N1 this year - something that hasnt happened in Europe yet
New rules tell doctors to look for mild eye problems and ask patients about animal contact: its different from old ways. Labs must now check all weird flu cases‚ and sick people need to stay home. Dr Melidou points out that H5N1 keeps finding new animals to infect - so everyone needs to stay alert
The good news: regular people have low risk of catching it‚ while animal workers face low-to-medium risk. But things could change if US cases get worse or the virus starts jumping between people