Scientists are sounding the alarm over the spread of bird flu across Antarctica, with a leading Chilean researcher telling AFP Tuesday of an observed strain “capable of killing 100 percent” of infected fauna.<\/p>\n
Researchers have been warning in recent years of bird flu’s spread on the icy continent, which hosts temporary teams of scientists but no permanent residents.<\/p>\n
But a particularly dangerous strain of the disease was detected in April 2024 by Chilean researcher Victor Neira and his team in five skuas, a type of polar seabird.<\/p>\n
Since then, the virus has spread to other species, with cases detected along 900 kilometers (560 miles) of coastline studied by scientists.<\/p>\n
In a recent expedition to Antarctica, new cases were discovered in Antarctic cormorants, kelp gulls, Adelie and gentoo penguins, and Antarctic fur seals, Neira told AFP.<\/p>\n
“The virus has completely spread throughout the Antarctic region where we have the capacity to go and study,” said Neira, a scientist at the University of Chile and the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH).<\/p>\n
“This disease is capable of killing 100 percent of the birds in short periods of time,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“For example, in one or two days it can kill 90 percent or 100 percent of the animals in a given area.”<\/p>\n
Antarctic species are often small in total population, underscoring the risk of outbreaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Animals such as Antarctic cormorants and skuas number around 20,000 in total.<\/p>\n
A global wave of bird flu has affected birds and mammals around the world since 2021, spread via bird migration.<\/p>\n
In 2023, it killed thousands of Humboldt penguins in Chile.<\/p>\n
axl\/dga\/str\/lab\/lpt\/nro\/jgc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists are sounding the alarm over the spread of bird flu across Antarctica, with a leading Chilean researcher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1441,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-303885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-afp","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}