Avian influenza continues to spread worldwide. UC Davis scientists are helping to monitor its expansion among wildlife, poultry and other species.
Wildlife and avian flu
In early April, Marcela Uhart, director of the Latin America Program at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, addressed the current state of avian flu at a webinar hosted by the UC Davis Grand Challenges’ Institute for Pandemic Intelligence.
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“It is causing a totally unprecedented scale of global spread and mortality,” said Uhart on the newest strain. “We have never seen anything like this before. It’s killing hundreds of thousands of birds, and tens of thousands of mammals.”
Uhart is especially worried about new strains and virus movement into new species. Currently, the largest scales of mortality have been documented in seabirds, waterfowl, and mammals like elephant seals. A few human cases have also been documented, along with cases in domestic pets and livestock.
Uhart has documented cases in the wild from the beaches of Argentina to Antarctica, and continues to track the impacts on affected ecosystems.