Khaberni - The Respiratory Infections Center at the Pasteur Institute in France reports that the avian flu virus, which spreads among birds and poultry, could lead to a pandemic worse than the coronavirus if it mutates and transitions to humans.
Reuters mentioned that "the highly infectious avian influenza virus has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds in recent years, disrupting food supplies and causing an increase in the price of poultry, although human infections remain rare."
Marie Anne Ramiks Welty, the medical director at the Respiratory Infections Center at the Pasteur Institute, confirmed: "What we fear is that the virus adapts to mammals, especially humans, and becomes capable of transmitting from one person to another, becoming pandemic."
She pointed out that the Pasteur Institute was among the first European labs to develop and share COVID-19 detection tests, which laid the groundwork for protocols by the World Health Organization and laboratories around the world.
The medical director at the Respiratory Infections Center at the Pasteur Institute explained that "people have antibodies against the common seasonal avian flu H1 and H3, but they do not have any antibodies for avian flu H5 which affects birds and mammals, nor are they immunized with antibodies against COVID-19."
She also mentioned that "it is likely that an avian flu pandemic would be extremely severe, and possibly more intense than the pandemic we suffered from five years ago."
