Are we ready for the next pandemic?

In early 2020, as COVID-19 spread across the globe, Australia found itself scrambling. Protective equipment was in short supply, national stockpiles had dwindled, and the vaccine rollout lagged behind much of the developed world. Lockdowns became the default strategy-not because they were ideal, but because there weren't better options in place. When the dust settled, state and federal governments pledged to learn from their mistakes.

Right now, a new threat is emerging: avian influenza, or bird flu. Unlike COVID-19, this virus isn't a complete mystery. Scientists have been monitoring it for decades. In recent years, it has spread widely among birds and even jumped to mammals, raising concerns that a strain could evolve to spread easily between humans.

The good news is that Australia has taken some steps to prepare, investing in antiviral stockpiles, pandemic flu vaccines, and biosecurity measures. The bad news is that preparedness is not a one-time effort. Are these steps enough? What else should be done?

This article explains what bird flu is, why it matters, and what Australia is doing to stay ahead of a potential outbreak while also highlighting some gaps that could leave the country scrambling once again.

What's bird flu?

Influenza comes in three varieties: A, B, and C. A is the real troublemaker-it's the one that causes pandemics. That's because Influenza A viruses love to mutate, constantly reshuffling their genetic material into new, potentially nasty strains.

Influenza viruses are named after two key proteins on their surface: Hemagglutinin (H) and Neuraminidase (N). These proteins are called antigens; they produce an immune response when they enter a living body. There are 18 types of H and 11 types of N, and different combinations create an alphabet soup of flu strains. Seasonal flu, the kind that ruins your winter, is usually H1N1 or H3N2. The one currently worrying scientists is H5N1.

So far, H5N1 has not been detected in Australian birds or poultry, but other bird flu strains, including H7N3, H7N9, and H7N8, have made local appearances. These viruses are what scientists call "highly pathogenic," which is a polite way of saying they are deadly to birds. That's bad news for poultry farms-and potentially bad news for us if the virus mutates to spread more easily to humans.

Could bird flu become a pandemic?

Flu viruses are notoriously good at evolving, and they have two main tricks up their sleeve when it comes to becoming more dangerous. The first is mutation. Small genetic changes build up over time. If H5N1 mutates in just the right way, it could bind more effectively to human cells, making it better at spreading between people.

The second is "reassortment," which happens when two flu viruses infect the same host and swap genes. If H5N1 infects someone who has also contracted the common winter flu, it could create a new hybrid virus that spreads like the flu but has bird flu's lethality. This is how past flu pandemics, such as the 2009 Swine Flu, emerged.

Right now, H5N1 struggles to infect humans and doesn't spread efficiently between people. But the more mammals and people it infects, the more chances it has to become more infectious.

How serious is bird flu?

For birds, H5N1 is a catastrophe. The highly pathogenic strain recently detected in Australian poultry farms can wipe out entire flocks in 24 to 48 hours. And it's not just the infected birds that are culled-entire farms may have to be sacrificed to prevent further spread.

For humans, the situation is more complicated. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly 1,000 human cases of H5N1 have been reported in the past two years, with about half resulting in death. That sounds terrifying, but the real fatality rate is likely much lower. The only cases counted by the WHO are the most severe-people sick enough to go to the hospital. Milder cases almost certainly go undetected, meaning the virus isn't the 50 percent killer it appears to be.