Also it hasn't fully crossed the species barrier so far as I'm aware - are all the cattle being infected directly from contact from birds (or by chicken protein in their feed, perhaps?) OR is it now being passed directly from cow to cow? This would be alarming as obviously currently humans can only catch it directly from close contact with birds and not from other humans, once the species barrier is fully breached in this way we are in big trouble - and despite the lessons from Covid19 and the MRNA vaccine developments, the industry is STILL not prepared for a fully human version of bird flu....
I think it's fairly well-proven that migratory birds are a vector, how else can we explain the decimation of wild sea birds from bird flu in remote parts of the UK where farming isn't done. Which is not to say that any global movement of birds either naturally or by man, isn't an issue. Natural spread will be slower since affected birds normally succumb quickly before they have the strength to migrate long distances, but once it arrives in a flock the effects are disastrous.
I suspect that migratory birds are ONE of the vectors but I don't believe that they are the ONLY vector or that they were the most important vector at the beginning. It's been over 20 years now and the game is all new. After all it's only been about 5 years since Covid started.
I've never been one for writing letters to the editor, but my morning wake up today brought me this note from Scientific American:
"Disease Ecology Butterfly Effect
When their preferred trees to chew on were cut down for the tobacco trade, chimpanzees in Uganda began consuming bat guano instead. Researchers recorded videos in the Budongo Forest Reserve between 2017 and 2019 and observed 839 instances of guano consumption, not only by chimpanzees but also by black-and-white colobus monkeys and red duikers, a type of forest antelope. The guano provides the chimps with essential minerals like sodium, potassium, magnesium and phosphorus that they would normally have gotten from the felled trees.
Why this matters: In addition to essential nutrients, the bat guano contained 27 unique viruses, including a novel coronavirus, the researchers found. Illnesses transmitted from animals to humans, called zoonotic diseases, account for about three quarters of new infectious diseases around the world. Those pathogens have a higher chance of jumping from an animal to a human when people encroach on ecosystems and disrupt relationships among species.
What the experts say: “This is the butterfly effect of infectious disease ecology,” says senior study author Tony Goldberg, a wildlife epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Far-flung events like demand for tobacco can have crazy, unintended consequences for disease emergence that follow pathways that we rarely see and can’t predict.”
The note was followed by this request for crowd sourcing as it seems to be called these days:
"The adage "six degrees of separation" posits that you could connect any two people on Earth through six or fewer social connections. The accuracy of the concept hasn't been backed by real-world findings, but the sentiment has become a popularized embodiment of network theory, which examines the interconnectedness within systems (economic markets, biological systems, particle statistics). The butterfly effect of infectious disease ecology described above seems to be another example of degrees of separation. We are not living in isolation, and human demands for cigarettes and other resources can activate a chain of connections that might launch the next pandemic.
You and I are one degree of separation apart. Make use of it and email me your thoughts on Today in Science: newsletters@sciam.com. Until tomorrow!"
So I spent an hour and a half writing my thoughts. Who knows if anyone will be interested.
Also it hasn't fully crossed the species barrier so far as I'm aware - are all the cattle being infected directly from contact from birds (or by chicken protein in their feed, perhaps?) OR is it now being passed directly from cow to cow? This would be alarming as obviously currently humans can only catch it directly from close contact with birds and not from other humans, once the species barrier is fully breached in this way we are in big trouble - and despite the lessons from Covid19 and the MRNA vaccine developments, the industry is STILL not prepared for a fully human version of bird flu....
I think it's fairly well-proven that migratory birds are a vector, how else can we explain the decimation of wild sea birds from bird flu in remote parts of the UK where farming isn't done. Which is not to say that any global movement of birds either naturally or by man, isn't an issue. Natural spread will be slower since affected birds normally succumb quickly before they have the strength to migrate long distances, but once it arrives in a flock the effects are disastrous.
I suspect that migratory birds are ONE of the vectors but I don't believe that they are the ONLY vector or that they were the most important vector at the beginning. It's been over 20 years now and the game is all new. After all it's only been about 5 years since Covid started.
I've never been one for writing letters to the editor, but my morning wake up today brought me this note from Scientific American:
"Disease Ecology Butterfly Effect
When their preferred trees to chew on were cut down for the tobacco trade, chimpanzees in Uganda began consuming bat guano instead. Researchers recorded videos in the Budongo Forest Reserve between 2017 and 2019 and observed 839 instances of guano consumption, not only by chimpanzees but also by black-and-white colobus monkeys and red duikers, a type of forest antelope. The guano provides the chimps with essential minerals like sodium, potassium, magnesium and phosphorus that they would normally have gotten from the felled trees.
Why this matters: In addition to essential nutrients, the bat guano contained 27 unique viruses, including a novel coronavirus, the researchers found. Illnesses transmitted from animals to humans, called zoonotic diseases, account for about three quarters of new infectious diseases around the world. Those pathogens have a higher chance of jumping from an animal to a human when people encroach on ecosystems and disrupt relationships among species.
What the experts say: “This is the butterfly effect of infectious disease ecology,” says senior study author Tony Goldberg, a wildlife epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Far-flung events like demand for tobacco can have crazy, unintended consequences for disease emergence that follow pathways that we rarely see and can’t predict.”
The note was followed by this request for crowd sourcing as it seems to be called these days:
"The adage "six degrees of separation" posits that you could connect any two people on Earth through six or fewer social connections. The accuracy of the concept hasn't been backed by real-world findings, but the sentiment has become a popularized embodiment of network theory, which examines the interconnectedness within systems (economic markets, biological systems, particle statistics). The butterfly effect of infectious disease ecology described above seems to be another example of degrees of separation. We are not living in isolation, and human demands for cigarettes and other resources can activate a chain of connections that might launch the next pandemic.
You and I are one degree of separation apart. Make use of it and email me your thoughts on Today in Science: newsletters@sciam.com. Until tomorrow!"
So I spent an hour and a half writing my thoughts. Who knows if anyone will be interested.