You’re probably consuming all the media you can about it because you can’t stop doomscrolling or freking out because the last pandemic conditioned you to.
You may have noticed that when the media says that someone died of #BirdFlu that they died of bird flu and that’s it. Those fuckers are not telling the whole story because they think you are stupid. You are not stupid, that’s why you’re reading this.
What they are not telling you is that right now, animal of infection origin is literally a designator of how an infection will go. Right now we are dealing with two, just fucking two, origin sources. Mammals and Birds.
Why you may ask? Good fucking question. Remember back in the Covid times we were all like variant! Does this variant make me closer to ded? Does this variant make me poop till ded? And on and on.
I’m selfishly worried about my beloved pets. I have a 36 year old military macaw that I’ve had since I was TWELVE and my daughter’s emotional support cockatiel. I am terrified about keeping them safe 😣🥺. I realize this is a trivial worry in the scheme of things, but that doesn’t change it for me …
My advice is to wash your hands before handling your pets. Make sure to cook all poultry thoroughly. Wash your hands after handling raw ingredients. Do not interact with wild birds, birds at a zoo, or any other pet birds. I used to work with avian flu & we weren't allowed to interact with any birds.
When migratory bird season starts, we're also going to set up a shoe-cleaning station outside the door, w/spray bottles of hypochlorous acid (NOT hypochloric! End of the word is IMPORTANT), so we can disinfect them if we walk in the woods, a park, or on grassy areas where birds may congregate.
I've been thinking about your pets. About 20 years ago, I was working on an avian flu vaccine for birds, but it never made it to market. There are no avian flu vaccines for birds in the US, unfortunately. I did find this vet website abt how to protect pet birds.
I keep hoping that some kind of vaccine will be found to be helpful to protect cats, at least partially. Ours are feral rescues, and keeping them inside is impossible (we've tried very, very hard). We have trained them to be inside until ~9 am, and back in as sunset approaches for food.
This helps avoid both the most common bird congregation times and automobile commuter times. However, that won't protect them from birds that happen to die near the neighbors' barns, or from the rodents they love so much.
If this is an inside bird as I think it is, you have nothing to worry about. For it to get bird flu, it would have to interact with an outside bird to contract it.
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https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/animal-health-and-welfare/animal-health/avian-influenza/avian-influenza-companion-animals