The Latest Breaking News from Bird Flu

It has ravaged farms, decimated wild birds and spilled onto mammals. Could avian flu spark the next human pandemic? The Down to Earth team takes a closer look.

Current risk of transmission from birds to humans remains low, but vaccine producers are ready to prepare a new shot “within months”

Avian influenza is a highly contagious viral infection of birds, commonly called “bird flu”, which has been recurring in Nigeria since 2006. It has resulted in the loss of millions of birds and income for people who rely on the poultry industry. Nigeria is currently grappling with another outbreak which…

An outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza that started in 2021 has become the largest bird flu outbreak in history, both in the U.S. and worldwide. In the U.S. the virus has led to the destruction of millions of commercially raised chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, and has killed thousands of…

The news Australia is searching for, and all the news that happened while you snoozed: This is The Loop, your quick catch-up for this morning's stories as they happened.

"We’ve been regularly hearing about outbreaks of newly emerging or re-emerging viruses"

From the widespread outbreak of mpox (formerly called monkeypox) in 2022, to the evolving bird flu situation, to recent cases of Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea, COVID isn’t dominating the headlines as much as it used to. Instead, we’ve been regularly hearing about outbreaks of newly emerging or re-emerging viruses.

The UK is in the grip of its largest ever outbreak of bird flu. As its name suggests, avian influenza primarily affects birds, but it can also infect humans and other mammals. The virus first emerged in China in 1996 and the highly pathogenic H5N1 is the predominant variant causing…

Pet owners are being urged to keep cats indoors and dogs on a leash after two poultry workers became the fourth and fifth Brits to become infected with bird flu this week — so how worried should we be about the virus? Katie Strick reports