Bird flu ‘has potential to become pandemic’, UKHSA director says
Richard Pebody said while the virus is ‘not new’ and the risk to the public remains low, its features have changed in recent years.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has the “potential to become a pandemic”, according to a director at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Richard Pebody, director of epidemic and emerging infections at UKHSA, said while the virus is “not new” and the risk to the public remains low, its features have changed in recent years.
Speaking of new and emerging infections at the the agency’s annual conference in Manchester on Tuesday, he said: “H5N1 has the potential to become a pandemic, a future pandemic.
“And so that’s why we’re watching that so closely and managing it so closely.”
It comes after a case of bird flu in sheep was confirmed for the first time on Monday.
Infection was detected in a single sheep in Yorkshire with repeat positive milk testing following routine surveillance of livestock where avian influenza H5N1 had been confirmed in captive birds.
At the time, Dr Meera Chand, emerging infection lead the UKHSA, said “current evidence suggests that the avian influenza viruses we’re seeing circulating around the world do not spread easily to people” and “the risk of avian flu to the general public remains very low”.
The virus was also detected in dairy cattle in a number of US states last spring.
Mr Pebody added: “H5N1 is not new. It’s been around for quite a long while. It first popped up in the back in the 1990s, mid-1990s, but it’s waxed and waned over the years.
“Over the past three or four years, its features have changed.
“And so, we’re seeing it in the States, in dairy cattle, in other other animals species, and we’re also seeing it here in the UK, and so we’re working very closely with colleagues on the animal health side to make sure that the human health side is protected.”
Mr Pebody described news of the case in a single sheep as “a new twist to the story”, but stressed the risk “hasn’t necessarily changed”.
Asked if the UKHSA’s risk assessment has changed in light of the news, Mr Pebody said it is “a new twist to the story” but the risk “hasn’t necessarily changed”.
“As always, it goes into this active, ongoing risk assessment,” he said. “At the moment, that hasn’t necessarily changed.
“We know that the virus can infect other animal species.
“We need to clearly look into this a little bit more, understand better what’s happened here and understand what the risk is to human health.
“It’s very much a live process, it’s all very recent, but it does highlight the really good surveillance that we’ve got in this country. And the work that we do with the animal health sector as well is really important.
“It’s been detected in the one sheep. It hasn’t been found elsewhere in terms of the other sheep. So that’s kind of reassuring.”
Bird flu in people is rare, although some viruses, like H5N1 or H7N9, have been associated with human disease.
Symptoms can vary depending on the strain, but most infections lead to a flu-like illness with fever, body aches, cough, sore throat and runny nose.
Other symptoms can include conjunctivitis, which causes red, sore eyes that produce discharge.
On Tuesday, the UKHSA published published its first annual report detailing the infectious diseases impacting England, which included influenza A(H5N1) as an “emerging infection”.
It said its surveillance programmes, which involve taking samples from people exposed to infected birds, detected a “small number” of workers who were asymptomatic, with “one clinical infection in January 2025”.
“There has yet to be demonstrated human-to-human transmission of avian flu despite extensive recent surveillance,” the report added.
A list of “priority pathogens” published by UKHSA also includes the viral family orthomyxoviridae, of which influenza A viruses belong to.
In December, the Government agreed a deal to buy more than five million doses of a vaccine for a strain of bird flu to bolster pandemic preparedness.
Mr Pebody said there is a “whole raft of different areas of work” going on when it comes to preparing for a future pandemic.
“On the preparedness front, we do need to be prepared for the next emerging infection and indeed, the next pandemic. So that’s very much the core business of the agency.”
