United Nations: The rapid spread of H5N1 avian influenza has reached an “unprecedented” scale or seriously affected food security in various countries

On March 18th, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warned on March 17th that the rapid spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) has reached an “unprecedented” scale, causing the death of hundreds of millions of birds worldwide and further spreading to mammals. The Food and Agriculture Organization calls on countries to strengthen biosafety, monitoring, and rapid response mechanisms to contain the spread of the epidemic. The Deputy Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Godfrey Maguanzi, emphasized that this crisis could have serious impacts on food security and supply in various countries, including nutritional loss, reduced rural employment and income, impact on local economies, and increased consumer costs.