Forgotten epidemic: with over 280 million birds dead how is the avian flu outbreak evolving?

New data reveals the virus has spread to endangered species in Antarctica – yet the H5N1’s risk to biodiversity, farming and human health is little explored

With at least 280 million birds dead since October 2021, the highly infectious H5N1 strain of avian flu has devastated poultry and caused the biggest sudden drop of the world’s wild bird population in decades. The millions of wild birds killed includes tens of thousands of endangered and endemic species – and tens of thousands of mammals have died too.

Today, new data, published in Nature Communications, documents the disease’s spread to the southernmost tip of the planet – the Antarctic region – where it has inflicted significant die-offs in elephant seals and fur seals. This outbreak has affected every continent except Oceania, and yet there has been little coverage of the impact on global biodiversity and farming systems – or of potential risks to human health.

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