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PUBLISHED: JANUARY 24, 2025
BY: SHEILA MULROONEY ELDRED
Bird flu, or avian influenza, might seem like a relatively new phenomenon to the general public. But the disease, technically called Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), has been sickening birds since the 1800s, and likely much longer. And in humans, cases date at least as back to the 1918 flu pandemic. If scientists could have surveyed wastewater hundreds of years ago, they might have found it had been circulating for much longer.
Understanding the history of bird flu can help reveal potential risks for a future pandemic, says Catharine Paules, an infectious diseases physician at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
“I always tell people that influenza worries me the most in terms of the risk of causing a pandemic,” Paules says.
Below is a timeline of what we know about the history of HPAI, or bird flu.
1878: 'Fowl Plague' Detected in Poultry
In 1878, a veterinarian in northern Italy noted a significant uptick in poultry dying. ...
BY: SHEILA MULROONEY ELDRED
Bird flu, or avian influenza, might seem like a relatively new phenomenon to the general public. But the disease, technically called Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), has been sickening birds since the 1800s, and likely much longer. And in humans, cases date at least as back to the 1918 flu pandemic. If scientists could have surveyed wastewater hundreds of years ago, they might have found it had been circulating for much longer.
Understanding the history of bird flu can help reveal potential risks for a future pandemic, says Catharine Paules, an infectious diseases physician at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
“I always tell people that influenza worries me the most in terms of the risk of causing a pandemic,” Paules says.
Below is a timeline of what we know about the history of HPAI, or bird flu.
1878: 'Fowl Plague' Detected in Poultry
In 1878, a veterinarian in northern Italy noted a significant uptick in poultry dying. ...