How worried should we be about avian flu?
The Briefing Room
00:00
Mammal Maintenance
We need to monitor the very carefully by genetically sequencing and determining the genetic code of these viruses. There have been a lot of mammals infected around the world, but they are by characteristic scavenging mammals that often will share habitat with infected and sick and dead birds. And therefore they often scavenge and consume those birds. Those birds are full of virus. They contain very high quantities and that really can be a trigger to leading to some splover event. But we do need to be careful before we jump to conclusions about its ability to transmit between mammals.
Transcript
Play full episode
