JONATHAN M. METSCH, Dr.P.H. – Tracking Emerging Public Health Challenges – November 6, 2026 – Bird Flu
“America is closer than ever to harbouring the next flu pandemic, leading experts have warned.
H5N1, the avian flu that has decimated bird populations worldwide, is spreading through US cattle herds, raging on one of the country’s largest mink farms and, in the past few weeks, has infected three people in Washington state, one of whom has died.
The new cases bring the total number of people in the US infected with H5N1 since 2022 to 75. There have been three deaths.
Scientists say deep cuts to the federal agencies responsible for protecting human and animal health under the Trump administration have allowed the virus to spread largely unchecked, sharply raising the risk of a human outbreak.
The more the virus circulates in animals, the more people are exposed to it, and the more chances it has to adapt to humans, experts say.
H5N1 has shown no sign so far of spreading between people, but if it did, it is feared the virus could trigger a global pandemic with a very high human cost.
The Telegraph spoke to leading virologists, many of whom argue that America is getting closer to becoming ground zero for the next flu pandemic.
It would not be the first time. The first case of H1N1, the “Spanish flu”, is thought to have emerged at an army base in Kansas in March 1918, and the pandemic went on to kill more than 50 million people.
“It does feel like a disaster waiting to happen,” said Prof Ed Hutchinson, a molecular and cellular virologist at the University of Glasgow.”
“We keep having a series of near misses, and I wonder how long our luck is going to hold.” (1)
“At the beginning of November, Washington State announced that one of its residents had died from bird flu. The announcement had an air of déjà vu to it: Around this time last year, another person in Washington State died of a related form of the virus—the third bird-flu death in the U.S. and the last reported fatality from the illness in the country until now. Autumn is beginning to look more clearly like the start of bird-flu season for livestock, and, by extension, the time of year that the spillover risk to humans could be highest. The question now is whether these patterns will hold—whether the dramatic rise of the flu among wild species may ultimately contribute to a seasonal uptick among farmed animals, which in turn could cause more cases in people each autumn.
North America had never really been troubled by bird flu until a few years ago, when waterfowl traveling from Europe to Canada brought a new kind of the virus with them, one that was well adapted to migratory birds. Since then, the pathogen has infected more than 2,200 commercial and backyard poultry flocks in the United States, totaling more than 200 million birds, the government estimated in September. More than 70 human cases have been confirmed in the country, and many more have likely gone undetected. Most of those people—including all three who have died—seem to have gotten the disease from livestock.” (2)
1.Is America on the brink of sparking a new flu pandemic?, by Maeve Cullinan, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/is-america-on-the-brink-of-an-animal-flu-pandemic/
2.Bird Flu Could Become a Terrible Feature of Fall, by By Roxanne Khamsi, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/11/bird-flu-death/689308/
curated by Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H.
Clinical Professor of Environmental Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai