Professor Paul Griffin

This one in particular is called H5N1 and the issue with this and part of its name is that it's highly pathogenic.

So this has become known as highly pathogenic avian influenza and it's caused devastation around the world.

We know the flu changes all the time.

There's lots of different types of flu.

We heard about subclade K last year, which was the flu that caused big problems in people all around the world.

And the flu can pick up different bits and pieces from different animals.

And in 2021, it picked up some components from birds and became known as bird flu, of which there's lots of bird flus around.

This one in particular is called H5N1.

And the issue with this and part of its name is that it's highly pathogenic.

So this has become known as highly pathogenic avian influenza.

And it's caused devastation around the world, particularly with commercial poultry flocks, but also a lot of other birds and a few mammalian species.

The risk here to humans remains low, but the risk with birds is very significant.

And that's why we're talking about it so much at the moment.

It certainly can.

And there's the whole number of variables that impact what species might be affected, particularly how closely they interact and how able it is to transmit.

We're very fortunate this one is not very good at transmitting between people.

In fact, it's terrible at that, which is a good thing for us.

But there have been some 40 mammalian species that have been infected, including some

you know really notable examples that you mentioned where the numbers have been quite significant so this flu is very good at transmitting and causing illness between birds and can affect some mammalian species whether it's normal or not it's hard to say each of these fluids is just so different they depend a lot on what components they have and and also can change over time so that is a little bit of a red flag and something we need to watch in terms of the impact it has had on so many mammalian species already

I think a little bit of both.