A bird in hand may be worth two in the bush. But two bird flu strains out of hand would certainly be worse than one. The U.S. hasn’t been able to control the spread of the H5N1 bird flu. And now for the first time ever, there’s been a reported outbreak in the U.S. of another strain of avian influenza, H5N9.
This H5N9 epidemic occurred on a duck farm in Merced, California, and was informed to the World Animal Health Organization, known as OMSA. And Whoa, the epidemic has led to the death of approximately 119,000 birds on December 2, 2024, it is not transparent how many of those birds died of infections compared to those that were sacrificed to save a new propagation of the H5N9.
When you are scrolling through the news or social media and only half paying attention, it may be easy to mistaken H5N9 for H5N1 since the only difference in their names is the number following the N. But these are two different lineages that in turn have their own sets of different clades and subclades under them. In other words, there are lots of different H5N1 viruses and lots of different H5N9 viruses.
In this case, H means hemaggglutinin, a protein discovered on the surface of Gippale type viruses that give a contribution to the virus in the cells that he infects and can come in 18 other subtypes: H1 to H18. N means neuraminidase, another protein that is helping the virus out of the cells and can come in 11 other subtypes: N1 to N11.
Having to worry now about two different strains of highly pathogenic avian influenza isn’t exactly a two tickets to paradise situation. But could they be two possible tickets to a pandemic? Well, the H5N1 strain has been spreading among birds for the past several years and recently appeared in other animals like cattle, cats, pigs and, yes, humans, as I’ve described for Forbes. At least 67 humans have tested positive for the H5N1 strain to date with one person in Louisiana dying, as reported by the Louisiana Department of Public Health.
The positive news is that there hasn’t yet been any clear evidence of any of these 67 people catching the virus from another human. But the more this strain continues to spread the greater the concern that H5N1 may eventually acquire the ability to spread among humans, which in turn would raise the possibility of the “p” word.
A pandemic is when a novel pathogen—meaning one that hasn’t really infected humans previously—spreads among humans in different countries simultaneously, as I have described before for Forbes. Novel pathogens can wreak havoc because your immune system can behave like a virgin on a first date when encountering them. Your immune system can end up firing off in random directions, trying all sorts of bleep that won’t work and, in fact, could cause more self-harm. That’s what happened during the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic.
So far, the H5N9 strain has not given the impression of spreading almost to the H5N1 strain. Therefore, at this time, H5N9 does not appear to be as wonderful a “P” risk as H5N1. Keep in mind, though, that flu bird strains are a bit like celebrity weddings. You never know what can happen and what’s happening in the scenes right now. You never know when a series of mutations or genetic rearrangements in the virus can particularly replace what the virus can do. It’s when two or more strains of influenza viruses infect a single host and then expose segments of their genetic curtains to the other.
The more the birds with H5N1 or N5N9 viruses are inflated, the more probably other mutations and rearrangeers occur. The possibilities that such fortuitous occasions accumulate even more when other animals become inflamed as pigs where rearrangements tend to be even more likely. That is why it is vital for the spread of these viruses among the birds, even if you are not a bird. And why the failure of the United States to make more about avian flu can end up putting us in danger with everything with and without wings. After all, you never know when mutations and reinciderens can end to give humans the bird, the avian flu, which is.
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