Posted on February 23, 2021
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For the first time, the H5N8 strain of bird flu has crossed the interspecies barrier, infecting several humans in Russia. If France, which slaughtered three million poultry to limit the spread of the virus, affirms that there is “no risk of transmission to humans” on the territory, this announcement puts the responsibility of intensive breeding in the onset of pandemics. It is the concentration of poultry in one place that makes it possible to cross the inter-species barrier.
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It is new. On February 20, Russia announced that the H5N8 strain of bird flu had crossed the interspecies barrier. For the first time, the virus has been detected in humans. More than seven people working in a poultry factory in southern Russia, where an avian flu epidemic affected the animals in December 2020, were thus infected. If the H5N8 strain has “cross the barrier interspecies” by being transmitted from birds to humans, “this variant of the virus is not transmitted from person to person at the present time”, said Anna Popova, head of the Russian health agency Rospotrebnadzor.
This is reassuring, especially since other variations of avian influenza such as the best known, H5N1, have already crossed this inter-species barrier without turning into a pandemic. The World Health Organization, which reacted, however recommends “monitor” the virus because it has the potential to mutate. The circulation of some avian influenza variants in poultry around the world is “worrying for public health” because they are able to “cause serious disease in humans” who have “little or no immunity to the virus”, adds the WHO.
Concentration of the poultry involved
For Gwenaël Vourc’h, research director at the National Institute of Agronomic Research: “There may have been other cases that we have not seen, especially if he has few symptoms.” She put forward the possibility that the seven Russian cases were only “tip of the iceberg”. In France, where more than three million poultry have been slaughtered to limit the spread of the virus, the Ministry of Agriculture ensures that the H5N8 strain does not present “no risk of transmission to humans”.
The fact remains that intensive breeding is involved. The H5N1 virus, for example, is a virus which kills birds very quickly and therefore changes few hosts. But intensive farming has changed the situation and caused transmission to humans. The same mechanism is at work for the H5N8. “The passage to humans, despite the inter-species barrier, is due to the concentration of poultry in one place and in degraded sanitary conditions (…) In theory, the avian virus is not transmissible to humans , but by dint of trying, he ends up passing. Almost the same scenario happened again in 2009 with the H1N1 virus, which appeared in pig farms in Mexico “, analyzes biologist François Renaud in the CNRS journal to evoke the H5N1 virus.
The meat industry may cause the next pandemic
According to a report by Fairr, a group of responsible investors, nearly three-quarters of the largest meat, fish and dairy companies pose a risk of new zoonoses, diseases that are transmitted from animals to animals. human. The industry is anchored “in a cycle of self-destruction that puts lives at risk“said Jeremy Coller, founder of Fairr and director of Coller Capital. “To avoid causing the next pandemic, the meat industry must tackle lax safety standards for both food and workers, confined animals and overuse of antibiotics. This will disrupt a chain of supply that was already cracking due to fundamental constraints on land, water and emissions “, added the specialist.
An analysis that could extend to the fur industry. At the end of 2020, several countries had to slaughter millions of mink. In Denmark, these farm animals prized for their fur have transmitted a variant of Covid-19 to humans. However, according to preliminary studies, this mutation of the virus could threaten the future vaccine for humans. The country, the world’s largest exporter of mink skins, had to slaughter 15 million mink. As a reminder, 65% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonoses.
Marina Fabre, @fabre_marina with AFP
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