Looking at the routes for bird migration can tell us something about how bird flu is spread
A paper by the Global Consortium for H5N8 and Related Viruses (coordinated by COMPARE partners) has been published in Science.
In November 2014, just weeks before the start date of COMPARE, highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N8 viruses that were previously confined to Asian countries spread to Europe and North America, causing numerous outbreaks in poultry.
National and international authorities asked the usual questions: Where did this virus come from, and how did it end up in our backyard? How widespread is this virus in wild and domestic animal populations? How much of a threat is it to animals and humans?
At the launch of COMPARE, it was immediately clear that this consortium should collectively employ the available toolboxes to investigate these outbreaks, and evaluate the new tools – which are still under development – in a real-life scenario.
Using targeted surveillance approaches, A/H5N8 viruses were rapidly detected in migratory wild birds, and a plausible scenario for their entry in Northern Europe was sketched. Field and experimental data on infections of avian and mammalian species provided crucial information about potential risks.
COMPARE partners brought together a global consortium of investigators with access to virus genetic data from around the world to apply a “forensics” approach in order to trace back the evolutionary and epidemiological history of the viruses causing these outbreaks (the Global Consortium for H5N8 and Related Viruses).
The COMPARE consortium clearly demonstrated its ability to respond rapidly to new outbreaks, to deliver critical information on time for risk assessments, while at the same time employing such threats to advance the state-of-the-art of outbreak investigations.