on water. witness on al jazeera. >> a bird flu outbreak in many countries. global concern is growi. how serious is it? could it become a new pandemic? this is inside story. ♪ >> hello and welcome to the program. the world is going through its largest ever recorded outbreak of bird flu. it's tearing through populations of poultry and wild birds. argentina and uruguay have

declared a state of national sanitary emergency after detecting the virus and wild birds. it's becoming endemic for the first time a some wild birds transfer the virus. the virus has jumped from europe and asia to north america. it's no longer restricted to birds. in the u.s. the number of wild mammals killed or hold is growing. authorities report inflection -- infections among grizzly bears, skunks and sea lions. the spread of the virus is heightening a risk of it spilling over into humans. the world health organization says we must all be prepared. >> h5n1 has spread widely in wild birds and poultry for 25 years. but, the reason it spills over to mammals needs to be monitored. for the moment we assess the risk to humans as low. >> we need to be vigilant to make sure that, as -- the spread

to an animal is contained. the more the virus circulates in animals, the higher the risk is for humans as well. the virus circulating in an animal can evolve to form. if there is a spillover inhuman population, we can have an outbreak of avian flu. >> let's look at what bird flu is and how it spreads. it's a disease that affects poultry and wild birds and usually flares. up between ottoman summer bird flu can infect entire flux within days and is transmitted through their droppings and saliva or by contaminated feed and water. the outbreak has affected more wild birds and before. the world health organization says it is recorded 42 million cases in domestic and wild birds since it began in october 2021. let's go ahead and bring in our guests. joining us is marcus rusk, chief executive officer of rose conforms.

and here is the virus department. and in england, is the head of the avian influenza group who focuses on diseases and farm animals. marcus, let me start. with you todayrose akers farms is the second largest a producer -- egg producer in the u.s. how are you coping so far? >> we have lost one farm of our own company. we have another joint venture, we 50%. we lost the farms twice. all -- each of the three times he lost over one million birds. >> you mentioned your farms have been hit badly. one of your farms that was hit twice, how many hens have you lost? what is the biggest risk to your

farms? >> the farm in colorado, we lost 1.8 million the first time, back in may or june. then, we lost 1.2 million in december. the farm wasn't back full again. the state of colorado in the u.s. has probably lost 90% of its chickens. >> how concerned should we be at this point about all of this? > i think it is unprecedented what we are witnessing. particularly the shift in the global distribution of this particular strain of the influenza. it has shifted from a somewhat localized problem with occasional spread internationally. now, this virus has dispersed globally in the wild bird population. from there, you can continue to see the examples that were

mentioned by the previous speaker. which is tragic for the poultry industry. but, also, the risk that we are looking at from the human health perspective is what if there is further spread into mammals. we've seen quite a few examples of that as well. that's worrisome. the sheer opportunity for exposure to this virus is a problem, both for the poultry industry and for the much lower risk, but it is present, for spillover into people. >> i want to pick up on a point you are making, you are talking about this avian influence of that has gone far beyond birds at this point. the recent spread among members of separate species, it has experts concerned about how the virus is changing. how much do we know about how it is mutating?

also, you talked about it being a low risk at this point for humans, how much of a risk is there? >> we know that, as far as distance from a line of viruses that we have been seeing and tracking since 1996, when they were first detected in china. since, over the years, that is already quite some time, we have seen occasional human infections. 950 so far. the worry is -- is not a lot. realistically. the infections have been severe more than half the people that had it, succumbed to the infection, died from the infection. that is a worry. it's a rare situation. but, the question is, could this change? could this change because the viruss change.

for that to happen, we are looking at spillovers into mammals. we have seen these in different carnivores. you can still see that that is part of what you could expect now, because these animals may eat to that -- dead or dying birds. the example was an outbreak in a mink farm in spain. there has been a transmission between minks. from one animal to the next. that's the kind of situation, where we start to worry about new changes of the virus tht make it -- that make it benefit for multiplying into mammals, which we humans are. there's no mention of that. there is a few mutations that have been found in different carnivores, including in the mink. not one of the ones that -- from

past research no for the human adaptation. but that is what we have to be really on the lookout for. >> you and your team as i understand it are working on a vaccine for poultry for all the various strains of avian flu. how is that process going? >> there are two ways to make these vaccines are three ways. one way is these poultry vaccines require, like human vaccines, they should be matched to the circulating field biases. in europe, vaccines are not being made. these are being used. therefore, there is no such hurry to academically match it. in our department we show that. if you have it matched, they will protect the poultry.

by the conventional vaccine, which kills the virus, you mix that with a conventional vaccine. there's another two ways. one is the protein-based vaccine we are developing, which provides a much higher efficacy. that is not in distribution. the other vaccine, they use the herpesvirus of turkey. which is used to protect turkey from the disease. by genetically inserting the gene, the new vaccine can be made as well. that can help the poultry. we're also looking for a candidate pandemic vaccine, in

in case it' required for humanss. there testing in a similar way that this should be. >> sorry to interrupt. if i could ask, where are you in the process? how long do you think it may be until these vaccines you're describing would be available and in use? >> it can be made available anytime the company can make it, within a month, if they require it. the companies are already making part of a new vaccine. there is another virus called h 992. many companies around the world are making it and using it for the poultry. the only thing they need to change is the virus.

and this cannot be handled in those factories. this is a risk to humans as well. that needs high containment. there are methods which make this virus to a low virus which can be handled at these factories. that will mutate really fast nowadays. it's all genetic. china is making these vaccines, using these technologies and giving to the poultry in the last 15 years against that. the technology will be available. but the other technology they need a little bit more time to

integrate antigen to those technologies. >> marcus, how much of a threat does this pose to the food supply in the u.s., to the food supply in the rest of the world? also, if you could tell our viewers some of the knock on effects of all of this? how is it impacting egg prices? >> in the u.s., when we lost about 15% of our birds approximately, the price of eggs during the holiday peak time period did double, triple almost. that was only for a six-week period of holiday demand. now, that the holidays are over the prices have come down. back to more reasonable levels for consumers. what we look at long-termers the

world trade restrictions -- if we vaccinate the broiler companies cannot sell the chicken meat to china, mexico and several other countries in the world. there's lots of arguments in the science community about whether you vaccinate to die or vaccinate to live. and in the u.s., they want to adopt the vaccinate to die where even if we vaccinate, we will still have to kill our birds if they get it. that's a waste. >> if i could also ask you, what kind of precautionary measures are you being asked to take an are you taking on the farms to prevent transition -- transmission? what are the steps? >> a lot of our facilities are what we call shower in and shower out with the people that

work with the poultry. we require them to change their clothes, take a shower before coming in. we don't allow any outside people to come to our farms now. you just have to take bio security. the tough part for any poultry producer in the world today, the minute they step outside the door of their henhouse and look into the wild, they have to accept the fact that, up to 20% of the species of birds in the world now are carrying ai. that's a problem. we're sitting here trying to say, we're not going to catch it, when it's endemic around the world. elizabeth: i saw you nodding a bit to what market was saying. >> it looked like he wanted to jump in. >> that is exactly -- that's a big challenge. both on the poultry side and for the human health side.

china has been successfully vaccinating down the circulation , avian influenza viruses. the most circulation was driven by circulation in the poultry industry. now, we have this virus essentially in the wild, which we cannot vaccinate. so, that problem is not dealt with. what you can address is spillover from wild birds into pigs, mink, humans. that's a different challenge than from what we have been seeing before in asia. to the discussion on artifacts and poultry is ongoing in europe with the same traits, restrictions there is now movement.

also because of the animal welfare side. if you have an occasional introduction all -- introduction, occasional calling of a form that is one thing. if that becomes a weekly routine, that's not sustainable for very different reasons that were just explained. one issue that is a discussion is the the discussion -- the discussion about, if you vaccinate poultry, could you have the situation where the virus is circulating but you don't see it because the birds no longer get sick. that would be, a risk increasing for the humans, working with the animals and that is where this question about how good and how good is the match between a vaccine and the virus you are trying to protect from. how good is that? that's why those questions are really important?

>> is the version of avian flu causing the most problems is that h5n1? how many subtypes are there? >> so there are several subtypes of h five. in china, the more prominent one is h5n1 six. in the middle sick -- middle east, this virus, gains genes from that virus and avian influenza viruses. we are seeing, a different respect, from wild birds to poultry. we're analyzing and comparing

this with the previous one. we're seeing a signature, that this virus is more fit in terms of infection, instability and in the environment. this virus gained some genes here and there and became the fit is fire so far. which we are comparing. >> marcus experts have been warning that farmers are going to have to treat the disease as a serious risk all year round. instead of just focusing on prevention efforts during migration seasons for wild birds. our farmers, particularly farmers in the u.s., are they prepared to do this? is this something they can do? and how difficult will that be? >> we are having to learn to

live with it. long-term we may have to go to penthouses. that makes the cost of producing eggs higher. it would disallow poultry being outside. we would have to have poultry contained inside the building and use filtered air. that's takes a lot more -- that takes a lot more energy, to increase the amount of electricity used in a poultry farm by five times. >> obviously the cost involved for farmers would be a lot higher right? >> it would raise the capital cost 20 or $30 a chicken. and raise the operational cost 10 or $.15 a dozen. it sounds like $.10 or $.15 is cheap. when you take the amount of eggs

produced around the world, that comes back. that's an average consumer, made by 15,000, 20 dozen big the year -- eggs a year. if you raise the price all consumers in the world, there 7 billion of us, if you raise it a dollar, that is $7 billion that would raise food costs. >> i want to talk again with you for a minute about this potential transmissibility between the birds and humans. how difficult is it for avian flu to travel directly from birds to humans? from the reading i have done, i am no expert, it seems as though near needs to be a vessel -- as though there needs to be a vessel for this to happen? what is the process like? >> what we know so far -- this is not a virus that is

transmissible between humans. that is the big stat we're looking out for. we see occasional infections of humans, but that is where it stops. those have been people that have had direct, intense contact with birds. so, if you have an infected farmer heard -- farm or bird, you can expect that to have a virus in the respiratory tract, but also in the stool. and if you have a big flock that is infected, there may be virus in the dust. there's plenty of ways people can get exposed. the step that is not happening for this virus, let's hope it will stay that way is that somehow, this virus can be transmitted between people. we know that from past research that that requires some changes. apparently the viruses are

optimal for infection of birds that is even the first step of the process. it's different in birds than in people. we need changes in the virus, before, that happens a -- happens as easily and people. the changes are not a lot. there are ways in which those can be introduced. we we have learned from covid that viruses that get a lot of room for spread can mutate. so, the more room for that, there is the risk of selection of viruses that have some mutations that make them more fit for spreading between people. there is one other step that is -- important to think about from past pandemics influenza. we have what is called mixing

vessels and that is the pig. we know that pigs can be infected both by avian influenza viruses and their own influenza viruses and human ones of viruses. if this virus would make it into pigs that would be really a big problem. that is why -- i am not so worried for the human health risk about the industry in the u.s. because that is a cure. we have poultry and other animal farms in other parts of the world were there is much more open housing and a less secure. where you can get those infections. i think that is where the focus needs to be increased, just to

make sure that something is not cooking. >> you mentioned covid in the reaction to that. are there lessons that we have learned from the covid-19 pandemic that could prepare us all better to deal with another potential pandemic. also, are we more worried at this stage about avian flu because of the covid-19 pandemic? is there any sense of this being more alarmist than it needs to be? >> this is an excellent question but this is the tough one. we have so far really been responding to emerging diseases. we have seen this with covid. so the first signal was people getting sick. then the whole world responded and we saw what happened.

it's difficult if you have a virus that is already very transmissible it is very difficult to really contain that. now, the big question is can we be ahead of that curve? that means, asking the question, what are the threats out there that we know of and what can we do to prevent this from happening? that is where we are with avian flu. i don't know. it could be. it is this a step we need to learn what does this mean? how do we step up our security, check our protocols for the situation that this would become transmissible to humans. are we ready for that? the line

that is a question we should ask because we have learned that if we don't prepare, and we wait for an outbreak like this to start, we'll have a hard time responding to it. >> we only have about a minute and a half left, very briefly, avian flu has become endemic, while birds have transmitted the virus to poultry. how much worse does this make the situation? >> this is very worse in terms of the poultry. in the u.k., every day we are seeing at least an outbreak. previously, only wants -- once. you can see from the 2008 to 2014 we may have had only one or two outbreaks in one year, we may have five or six. it's really worse because of this virus. it's become endemic.

not only wild birds, but it is in the resident while birds. which do not migrate. but remain within the boundaries. that means the viruses persisting. as long as the viruses persisting, then certainly, it's a risk to the poultry, it is huge. >> we have run out of time. we'll have to leave the conversation there. thanks so much to all our guests. thank you too for watching. you can see the program any time by visiting our website al jazeera.com. for further discussion, visit our facebook page. you can join the conversation on twitter. for me and the whole team from here, goodbye for now.

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