Summary
A study reviewing 1,500 research papers found that 90% of pregnant women who contract bird flu (H5N1) die, with 87% of their unborn babies also dying.
Most surviving babies are born prematurely.
While human cases are rare and usually result from direct contact with infected birds, the findings highlight the vulnerability of pregnant women, who often face exclusion from vaccine trials and public health programs.
Experts stress the need for pandemic preparedness and ethical studies on vaccine safety in pregnant women as H5N1 continues to spread globally.
Two of my childhood friends are both pregnant right now. Fuck.
The disease is still very rare, and human-to-human transmission has never been recorded. Right now, the main risks are infected birds or raw cows milk, (because apparently cows can also transmit it). The big concern right now is that transmission between different animals seems to be getting more common, which means the virus is changing. And it could 100% make the jump to human-to-human transmission at some point soon, especially as cases increase; Every new patient is a chance for the virus to mutate and begin spreading.
It’s one of the reason that the raw milk conspiracy theorists have become so dangerous recently. They’re quickly going to become the new COVID anti-masker super-spreaders if the virus mutates because they won’t stop drinking raw milk.
It’s still very rare in humans. The headlines make it sound a lot worse than it is currently. It could easily change and become bad, but it’s not there currently.
Unless they’re involved with factory farms, they’re unlikely to be in serious risk by the time they give birth.
ETA: 61 total reported cases in the US so far.
61 cases of an extemely virulent disease is actually a lot and should be concerning, but not a reason to panic. It is a good idea to be mentally ready for when it does start spreading between humans so we can quarantine without panic buying toilet paper.
Thanks for putting things into context.