The director at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Richard Pebody has warned the H5N1 strain of bird flu has the “potential to become a pandemic”
The director of epidemic and emerging infections at UKHSA said the virus is not new and currently the risk to the public is low.
Speaking at a conference on Tuesday Pebody said, “H5N1 has the potential to become a pandemic, a future pandemic.
“And so that’s why we’re watching that so closely and managing it so closely.”
This comes after a sheep in Yorkshire was diagnosed with H5N1 during a routine inspection and was humanely destroyed.
Bird flu identified ‘in a single sheep on a farm in Yorkshire’
Dr Meera Chand, emerging infection lead the UKHSA, said, “current evidence suggests that the avian influenza viruses we’re seeing circulating around the world do not spread easily to people” and “the risk of avian flu to the general public remains very low.”
Pebody added, “H5N1 is not new. It’s been around for quite a long while. It first popped up in the back in the 1990s, mid-1990s, but it’s waxed and waned over the years.
“Over the past three or four years, its features have changed.
“And so, we’re seeing it in the States, in dairy cattle, in other animals species, and we’re also seeing it here in the UK, and so we’re working very closely with colleagues on the animal health side to make sure that the human health side is protected.”
With the sheep being confirmed of being infected this is now a “new twist to the story,” but insisted the risk has not “changed.”
He was asked if the UKHSA’s risk assessment has changed in light of the news, Pebody said this is “a new twist to the story” but the risk “hasn’t necessarily changed.”
He continued, “As always, it goes into this active, ongoing risk assessment.”
He added, “We know that the virus can infect other animal species.
“We need to clearly look into this a little bit more, understand better what’s happened here and understand what the risk is to human health.
“It’s very much a live process, it’s all very recent, but it does highlight the really good surveillance that we’ve got in this country. And the work that we do with the animal health sector as well is really important.
“It’s been detected in the one sheep. It hasn’t been found elsewhere in terms of the other sheep. So that’s kind of reassuring.”
Pebody said that the UK must be prepared for future pandemics and there is a “whole raft of different areas of work” taking place for this.
“On the preparedness front, we do need to be prepared for the next emerging infection and indeed, the next pandemic. So that’s very much the core business of the agency.”
