Avian flu
BBC Inside Science
00:00
Is This Something That's Much More Infectious, Much More Easily Transmissible?
What we're looking at is very much more transmissibility in bird species that have never been previously detected to have these hyalapatogenic viruses. We've also seen even more worryingly these viruses being detected in terrestrial mammals. So for example in foxes or indeed in North America in skunks, in a wide range of mammals that seem to have acquired this infection probably through scavenging on dead wild birds. But previously we haven't seen that picture. We haven't seen mammals being infected and indeed dying of these viruses. This virus is lethal in many poultry species. I think the other challenge is that there's such a burden of virus in the environment that it makes it very difficult
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