Here’s Why Experts Are Concerned About Bird Flu

(MedPageToday) What appears to be mammal-to-mammal transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) on a mink farm in Spain has caught the attention of infectious disease epidemiologists around the world. A paper published in Eurosurveillance last monthopens in a new tab or window detailed an H5N1 outbreak among farmed minks in the Galicia region of Spain in October 2022. Montserrat Agüero, of Spain’s agricultural ministry, and colleagues suspected that transmission occurred between the animals based on “the increasing number of infected animals identified after the confirmation of the disease, and the progression of the infection from the initially affected area to the entire holding.”