The worst epidemics and pandemics in history

First Penguins Die In Antarctic Of Deadly H5N1 Bird Flu Strain

At least one king penguin is suspected to have died from bird flu in the Antarctic. If confirmed, it will be the first of the species killed by the highly contagious H5N1 virus in the wild.

Researchers have previously raised alarm about "one of the largest ecological disasters of modern times" if bird flu reached remote Antarctic penguin populations. The birds are currently clustering together for breeding season, meaning the disease could rip through entire colonies if it continues to spread through the region.

King penguins are the world's second-largest penguin, at about 3ft tall, and can live for more than 20 years in the wild. The suspected case was recorded on South Georgia island in the Antarctic region, according to the latest update from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (Scar). A gentoo penguin was also suspected to have died from H5N1 at the same location.

Quick Guide What is bird flu? Show

What is H5N1, the deadly strain of bird flu sweeping the world?

The current outbreak of bird flu started in Europe in 2021. By September 2022, H5N1 had been recorded in 63 wild bird species across 37 countries, according to an avian influenza overview published by the European Food Safety Authority. It hits seabirds particularly hard because they sit so close together during the breeding season: some colonies experience losses of 50% to 60%.

Then it crossed the Atlantic, with the first US case recorded in an American wigeon duck found in South Carolina in January 2022. By November it had reached South America. More than 40% of all Peruvian pelicans died over a period of a few weeks in early 2023.

Working out how many wild birds have died is difficult because so many carcasses are never found or counted. Researchers say it may be in the millions.

Does it affect other species?

The H5N1 virus has multiple genes that can switch and evolve together to spread the virus quickly into a wide range of species. The death of an estimated 20,000 sea lions in Chile and Peru shows that this is a disease that also kills mammals en masse. Black bears, brown bears and polar bears have also been killed.

How did it reach the Antarctic, and what will happen next?

The spread of this disease is facilitated by the migration routes of wild birds. It took just three months to spread almost 4,000 miles down South America, and it was seen as inevitable it would at some point reach the Antarctic.

It was first reported in the region in October 2023 among brown skua on Bird Island, off South Georgia. Since then it has spread into elephant seals, fur seals and kelp gulls. Most recently, it has been recorded in Antarctic penguin populations too.

So far there are no recorded cases on the Antarctic mainland, although researchers expect that to happen in the coming months. This latest H5N1 virus is yet to be reported in Oceania.

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Separately, at least one gentoo penguin has been confirmed to have died from H5N1 on the Falkland Islands – 900 miles (1,500km) west of South Georgia – with more than 20 chicks either dead or also showing symptoms. Since H5N1 arrived in the Antarctic, there have been mass deaths of elephant seals as well as increased deaths of fur seals, kelp gulls and brown skua in the region.

A scientist testing seals for bird flu on the island of South Georgia. The virus has been found in elephant and fur seals in the Antarctic region. Photograph: Dr Marco Falchieri/Apha/PA

Previous outbreaks in South Africa, Chile and Argentina show penguins are susceptible to the disease. Since it arrived in South America, more than 500,000 seabirds have died of it, with penguins, pelicans and boobies among those most heavily affected.

Ed Hutchinson, a molecular virologist at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, said: "The arrival of this H5N1 virus in the Antarctic towards the end of last year rang alarm bells because of the risk it posed to wildlife in this fragile ecosystem. And while it is very sad to hear reports of penguins dying … it is unfortunately not at all surprising."

Mass deaths of elephant seals recorded as bird flu sweeps across the Antarctic

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Diana Bell, emeritus professor of conservation biology at the University of East Anglia, said she had feared something like this would happen. "I'm just devastated, really – as will everybody who cares about penguins and the Antarctic … Given their colonial social organisation, you'd just wonder how quickly it would go through the colonies."

So far, there are no recorded cases on the Antarctic mainland, according to Scar mapping data, but this could be because there are so few people present to record possible fatalities. Avian flu adds to the pressures already faced in these pristine polar ecosystems – a study in 2018 warned that the climate crisis and overfishing meant Antarctica's king penguins "could disappear" by the end of the century.

The disease is also ripping through wildlife populations in the Arctic. In December, it was confirmed that for the first time a polar bear had died of H5N1. As with penguins, it is possible that more bears have died unnoticed as they tend to live in remote places with few people.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X (formerly known as Twitter) for all the latest news and features

Current Bird Flu Variant Could Spread To People Via Pigs, Ministers Warn

The possibility exists that the currently circulating variant of the highly contagious bird flu virus could infect pig farms and then spread to people, Ministers Piet Ademan (Agriculture) and Conny Helder (Public Health) said in a preparation document sent to parliament on Monday. Pigs that roam outdoors and come into contact with wild water birds, in particular, form a possible bridge to humans, they said, AD reports.

The H5N1 bird flu virus has spread throughout the world in recent years. It emerged in the Netherlands in 2021, and since then, the government has had infected farmed birds culled in over 100 locations.

Pigs can serve as a "mixing vessel" of viruses, from which a new pathogen that is dangerous to humans can emerge, the document states. These animals can simultaneously be infected with influenza viruses common to pigs and other types of influenza that occur in birds and humans. "These viruses can mix into a new variant with potential zoonotic risks," the Ministers said.

The document is one of the outgoing Cabinet's "pandemic preparedness" steps, the Ministers said. The government is already taking precautionary steps to prevent this from becoming a massive problem. People who come into contact with infected birds can already get vaccinated against seasonal flu. The government is also stockpiling the anti-viral drug Oseltamivir. And monitoring pig farms, of course.

If a pig farm is infected, the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) will take action. Depending on how many pigs are infected and whether the virus is spreading among the animals, the NVWA will decide if it is necessary to cull the entire farm.

"It is absolutely wise that the government makes these preparations," virologist Ab Osterhaus, a bird flu specialist, told AD. The chance of a mutation in pigs and a transfer to humans is not big, but not insignificant either. "It's not entirely unlikely," he said.

Chairman Linda Verriet of the Pig Farmers' Producers' Organization stressed that there is no reason to panic. "Bird flu is a disease you must report. Having a script to work from is part of that. That is being made now. The virus has never occurred in farmed pigs, and the risk is very small," she told AD.

Avian Influenza Virus Presents 'Apocalyptic' Threat To Wildlife Around The World

Massive die-off of elephant seals in Argentina due to avian influenza is latest indication that this dangerous virus poses an existential threat to global wildlife

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Powerful strain of bird flu virus wipes out chickens and other intensively farmed poultry as well as ... [+] livestock and even wild birds and wildlife globally.

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Whilst humans were busy with the Covid-19 pandemic, the world's birds and wildlife were hit hard by a pandemic of H5N1 avian influenza.

"H5N1 now presents an existential threat to the world's biodiversity," warned Chris Walzer, the Wildlife Conservation Society's Executive Director of Health, in a statement. "It has infected over 150 wild and domestic avian species around the globe as well as dozens of mammalian species. The bird flu outbreak is the worst globally and also in U.S. History, with hundreds-of-millions of birds dead since it first turned up in domestic waterfowl in China in 1996."

The so-called "bird flu" is highly transmissible both through airborne droplets and feces-borne infections. The worsening climate crisis is exacerbating it because wild birds are altering their schedules to coincide with optimal migration weather. Thus, the flu virus's circulation continues and grows, thanks to intensive egg and poultry farming and its characteristically filthy and overcrowded cages crammed with sick and dead birds. This horrific environment is superb for encouraging influenza to mutate into ever-more contagious and deadly forms, through a process known as genetic 'reassortment'. These increasingly virulent flu viruses then spill over into wild birds that quickly carry it far and wide whilst they migrate, often with devastating consequences.

"First, Great Skuas began dying across islands in Scotland in summer 2021," reported the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). "Then in winter 2021/22 on the Solway Firth, bird flu killed a third of the Svalbard breeding population of Barnacle Geese – at least 13,200 birds. In winter 2022/23, up to 5,000 Greenland Barnacle Geese died on Islay, as well as hundreds of ducks, swans, gulls and other geese species. Birds of prey such as Peregrine Falcon, Hen Harrier, Buzzard, White-tailed Eagle and Golden Eagle have also been testing positive."

In fact, almost all of the 77 species of seabirds that breed in the UK have tested positive for H5N1. Unfortunately, documenting this virus in wild birds underestimates the total species diversity as well as the true number of wild birds killed by bird flu. This is because the surveillance scheme only tests dead birds, and not all dead wild birds are reported or collected.

Further, a large diversity of mammals are now dying from HPAI, too.

"Globally, HPAI H5N1 has now infected many mammals — including foxes, pumas, skunks, and both black and brown bears in North America," Dr Walzer noted. Additionally, it was just reported that a wild polar bear tested positive for H5N1 in Alaska — the first influenza death ever documented in this species (more here).

"Some 700 endangered Caspian seals died from HPAI near Dagestan in 2023," Dr Walzer continued.

Troublingly, influenza outbreaks in Spain and Finland have also been documented in farmed mink. This is especially dangerous because these small mammals — which, like poultry, are kept in filthy, overcrowded and unhealthy conditions — provide ample opportunities for viral reassortment so it can easily begin to infect other mammals (don't forget that humans are mammals too) whilst simultaneously increasing its virulence.

This increasingly dangerous HPAI influenza is now found in the Global South, especially along its coasts, because it was carried there by infected migrating seabirds. Hunting or opportunistically scavenging mammals that eat these dead or dying birds can thus be exposed to very large quantities of the virus. This provides H5N1 with a convenient pathway to sneak in and adapt to a new host population that it does not normally infect.

The effects of HPAI influenza can be devastating.

"Sampling efforts suggest that more than 95 percent of the Southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) pups born along 300 km of the Patagonia coastline died at the end of 2023," Dr Walzer pointed out. "It's the first report of massive elephant seal mortality in the area from any cause in the last half century. The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along the breeding beaches can only be described as apocalyptic. This 2023 die-off contrasts starkly with the 18,000 pups born and successfully weaned in 2022."

Could HPAI influenza infect and kill humans, too? Possibly. This concern is especially relevant considering that our health and the health of both wild and domestic animals are inextricably linked. As the global population grows, humans are increasingly moving into previously uninhabited areas, so more humans come into contact with wildlife and their diseases, which increases our pandemic risk. (COVID-19 is but one such example.) Whether it's H5N1 or a different virus, it's inevitable that new viruses will continue to emerge and threaten to trigger another human or wildlife pandemic.

"As the virus continues to spread through mammal populations, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on public health officials to prepare for a potential spillover of H5N1 to people. The 'R naught' value — the number of people infected by a single infected person — for COVID initially ranged from 1.5 to 7. For H5N1 among birds, it is around 100," Dr Walzer reported.

A highly contagious novel pathogen like HPAI influenza that can potentially wipe out entire species can likewise threaten the stability of human populations and societies. For this reason, there is urgent need to safeguard the health of people, their pets and livestock, of wildlife, as well as conserve global biodiversity and protect the natural environment to reduce the threat of emerging diseases.

"It is imperative that we take a collaborative One Health approach to identifying emerging strains of bird flu across the globe to support the development of specific and universal vaccines that can quickly treat infection in people to prevent another pandemic," Dr Walzer advised.

"The cost of inaction is already causing major devastation to wildlife," Dr Walzer pointed out. "As we work to help affected populations recover, we must remain vigilant against the spread of this deadly pathogen to people before it's too late."

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