Sir, – Industrial animal farming, more commonly known as factory farming, has, according to the UN, caused the majority of infectious diseases in humans in the past decade. In Russia, scientists have detected the first case of transmission of the H5N8 strain of avian flu to humans and have alerted the World Health Organisation. While the highly contagious strain is lethal for birds, it has never before been reported to have spread to humans. The more widely known strain of avian influenza is the H1N1, which is responsible for all the major flu outbreaks, like the 1918 Spanish flu and the 2009 swine-flu outbreak. There is another, less talked-about timebomb that is ticking just as loudly, factory farming.

Source: The Irish Times March 01, 2021 00:04 UTC