The former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that a bird flu pandemic is all but guaranteed.
Robert Redfield, who served as the agency’s director from 2018 to 2021, said during a recent interview on NewsNation that “it’s not a question of if, it’s more a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic.”
Redfield said that bird flu, when it enters humans, has a likely mortality rate of between 25 percent and 50 percent.
Its modes of transmission include inhalation and direct or indirect contact, according to a 2007 report from the National Institutes of Health, which said that bird flu “can have manifestations ranging from mild to severe or fatal disease.”
As of June 17, there have been four reported cases of bird flu in the U.S. since 2022, according to the latest CDC data. Three of the cases involved exposure to infected dairy cows, while the other followed exposure to poultry.
Redfield said that he is less concerned that human infections will be driven through spillover, but says it is more likely to happen through gain of function research in a laboratory.
“I can literally create this virus in weeks to months by using gain-of-function research,” he said. “I know exactly what amino acids I have to change, because in 2012, against my recommendation [scientists] actually published them. So the recipe for how to make bird flu is already out there. All you have to do is look it up.”
Avian influenza (H5N1) is caused by the influenza A virus and is called bird flu because it is largely spread by wild birds that are able to survive infection. Within days of infection, it is usually fatal in chickens and turkeys.
There is currently no evidence suggesting human-to-human transmission is taking place.
More than 40 cattle herds in nine states have confirmed cases of bird flu.
The CDC says it is monitoring the bird flu situation through a collaboration with state, local, and territorial health departments.
