A New Age of Infectious Diseases

The H5N1 Bird Flu continues to make news. As reported by The Guardian, it has infected birds, cattle, sea lions, and humans. Scientists warn that this strain of bird flu is unique, acting as a “panzootic” disease that has the ability to cross lines between multiple species (January 15, 2025). As a University of Nottingham professor observed, “Panzootic is almost a new thing, and we don’t know what sort of threat it is…. We have some viruses that can infect multiple species, and we have some viruses that can cause massive outbreaks, but we haven’t tended to have the combination—that’s something of a new phenomenon…. That’s where H5N1 is going, and it just makes it so unpredictable. [It’s] unique and new in our lifetime and memory.”

H5N1 has now traveled to more than 48 different species of mammals and appears to be continuing. As scientist Ed Hutchinson from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research warned, “It is really hard for infectious diseases to effectively stop being specialists and move over into a new species. So when that happens, it is striking and concerning.” This virus has led to the death of millions of sea birds and massive declines in their populations, as well as the deaths of tens of thousands of sea lions and elephant seals. As The Guardian notes, “shrinking habitats, biodiversity loss and intensified farming create perfect incubators for infectious diseases to jump from one species to another.” And now that “three-quarters of emerging diseases can be passed between animals and humans,” some are sounding the alarm that “panzootics could become one of the era’s defining threats to human health and security.” Thankfully, the bird flu is not yet spreading between humans, but the implications of such panzootic diseases are still sobering.

Jesus Christ revealed to the Apostle John that before His return mankind would experience the worst period of disease, pestilence, and death in human history—including death caused by animals (Revelation 6:7–8). This new phenomenon of panzootic disease is something to watch we approach the end of the age. To learn more about this, be sure to read “A Pale Horse.”