Researchers are urgently documenting and trying to contain North America’s largest outbreak of avian influenza to date.
. Last year, after surveys found the strain circulating at high levels among wild birds in Western Europe, U.S. officials increased their vigilance and requested funds to sample more waterbirds killed by hunters along the Atlantic and Pacific flyways.
Researchers have not yet tested the transmissibility of the virus, but they suspect it spreads more easily than previous strains. That would mean a higher proportion of migratory birds get infected, the geographic spread is wider, and there’s a higher prevalence in waterbirds—and hence more spillover into poultry and wild birds, says Bryan Richards, emerging disease coordinator at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center.
To prevent infections, many zoos have moved their captive birds indoors or away from visitors. It’s much harder to protect wild birds, however, raising fears that the virus could threaten endangered species, especially those with small populations. So far, however, the number of detected infections in wild populations is relatively low, so researchers are “cautiously optimistic … that we will not see tremendous impacts,” Richards says.
In 2015, Richards says, infections among wild birds petered out in summer as they moved north and dispersed across their nesting grounds, and as lakes and wetlands warmed, creating conditions inhospitable for the virus. This summer, “Knock on wood, we should see a substantial waning of impacts in backyard flocks and commercial operations as well,” he says.
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