A new pandemic

"The number of infections in wild birds has increased in recent weeks," said FAVV spokeswoman Hélène Bonte. "This indicates the presence of the virus in Belgium and poses a serious risk to poultry kept outdoors. We strongly advise owners to protect their birds from wild species, for example by covering enclosures with netting". ​

Infected wild animals

Infections in wildlife were already recorded in Belgium this year, including a dead goose and a sick swan in the province of Limburg, as well as a buzzard, a grey heron and two seagulls on the coast.

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In recent years, avian influenza has spread to six continents, affecting at least 485 species of birds and around 50 species of mammals, including polar bears, seals, dolphins and even captive tigers. ​

As vaccine-denier, conspiracy theorist and science-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes control of the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, many doctors are sounding the alarm about several U.S. public health crises — a flu season that’s the most intense in more than a decade; measles outbreaks; and a simmering bird flu that, if it mutates and can be spread human-to-human, could make “COVID look like a walk in the park.”

And there’s another illness — linked to the flu but dangerously unreported — that is leading to tragic outcomes in children.

Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, in an appearance on Deadline: White House with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday, warned that the flu has sparked “a serious condition called acute necrotizing encephalitis,” and that the Center for Disease Control, under orders from President Donald Trump, has not released critical information about it.

“Right now in this country, there is a major challenge occurring with children developing influenza and then developing a condition called acute necrotizing encephalitis,” Osterholm said. “Have you seen a word come out of the CDC about this? They’ve been prohibited from even putting this kind of information out. This is critical information for parents to know.

“This is a serious brain complication of influenza infection for which there are many cases out there right now occurring, parents should know about this. So if they have children who have these signs and symptoms, get them into the hospital, or at least the emergency room, as soon as possible. That’s the kind of thing that is very, very hard for us ... where we know we can do things to make it better, and we’re not given that opportunity.”

Osterholm listed the symptoms.

“Your children have influenza-like symptoms to begin with,” he said. “That’s how it starts — the fever, the muscle aches, the chills. But then there’s a certain lethargy. Meaning [there is a] certain tiredness, a lack of consciousness, where it’s very hard to arouse the children. Those are the symptoms, and when they appear, you need to seek medical care immediately."

Pediatric deaths, possibly linked to vaccine denying, “are climbing dramatically in this country with this flu season,” Osterholm said. “Parents need to understand those and [the Trump CDC is] not [publicizing] that right now. We’re not sharing that with them. And I think that’s a huge, huge mistake.

“We know anecdotally that there are situations around the country where we have 12 children hospitalized in Boston, 10 children hospitalized at Stanford and many other locations around the country, and the media is not covering it, and nor is CDC. And this is something we can do something about, if parents understand this is occurring now and get their children in early. This surely can be a major step in helping to reduce the risk of serious illness and deaths.”

New York Times Health Policy reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, also appearing in the segment, said she is concerned about “a bird flu outbreak that could be very, very serious.”

H5N1 avian influenza has been nothing if not a slow-boil crisis. The outlook took a turn for the worse in 2021 when birds brought the virus from Europe to America, mirroring 2014, when Asian migratory flocks sparked widespread outbreaks in the United States and Canada. Both these events led to mass infection of domestic poultry and resulted in the culling of millions of chickens. But the outbreaks that began in 2021 and continue to this day have an additional feature: This time, mammals like seals and big cats have also been infected in large numbers, turning up dead on beaches, in zoos, and elsewhere.

Last year proved to be yet another inflection point for the virus when it was detected in hundreds of US cattle herds and in workers who managed them. By now it’s clear there’s no reason for optimism that H5N1 will fade away as a minor nuisance. To the contrary, the situation has only been trending worse.

With many signs pointing to a future flu pandemic, the keys to getting in front of it will be ensuring a free flow of data that can provide early warning and boosting the resources for testing widely and analyzing H5N1’s genetic evolution. That needs to happen both globally and domestically—but at a critical juncture, President Donald Trump has instead pulled the United States back from international health efforts, compounding his misstep by targeting domestic health agency communications, capacities, and budgets. The chances are increasing that the world will miss an opportunity to address a potential pandemic before it begins.

After the inauguration, the administration prevented the publication of the CDC’s vaunted Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which had boasted an unblemished record of regular publication for decades, even after presidential transitions. The first post-inauguration edition reportedly was to contain studies on H5N1. When publication resumed, they weren’t included (although one has since published, showing a risk of infection for veterinarians working with infected animals).

Since then, data has been trickling out from multiple sources.

Earlier this month, the Department of Agriculture revealed a second strain of H5N1 had jumped from birds into three dairy herds in Nevada. The jump involved the more lethal strain D1.1 strain, which has mutations that could make the virus spread more easily in mammals, as opposed to the milder B3.13 strain which has been infecting herds since last summer. The Nevada cows didn’t have symptoms when they were tested, but early detection by the Nevada Department of Agriculture’s milk testing program allowed officials to quarantine affected herds and thereby contain the spread of infection.