According to information from Reuters, the director of the Respiratory Infections Center at the Pasteur Institute in France, Marie-Anne Rameix-Velti, warned of the potential threat that the bird flu virus could mutate and cause a more serious pandemic than COVID-19.
Bird flu is transmitted among both wild and domestic birds. Experts are considering the likelihood of the virus mutating and its ability to infect humans. Rameix-Velti noted: "There is concern that the virus could adapt to mammals, including humans, and begin to spread between people. In this case, it could become pandemic."
In recent years, highly pathogenic bird flu has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds; however, cases of human infection remain rare. Marie-Anne Rameix-Velti emphasizes that if the virus causes a pandemic, it could be more dangerous than the COVID-19 pandemic. She describes bird flu as a more dangerous disease compared to the coronavirus due to its high mortality rate among healthy individuals.
Gregorio Torres, head of the scientific department of the World Organisation for Animal Health, also noted that the current risk of a bird flu pandemic among humans remains low. Nevertheless, he calls for readiness for possible changes in the situation. Rameix-Velti added that if the virus begins to spread among people, its outbreaks could be controlled more effectively: "We already have vaccine candidates, and we know how to produce them quickly."
