Bird flu, brain rot and booze – the health issues you’ll be hearing more about in 2025 | Devi Sridhar

Will there be another pandemic, how will the world deal with social media, and is any alcohol good for you? Here’s what I think

Blink and another year goes by: but 2025 brings a chance for a fresh start, and some reflection on where we have got to and what is to come. I don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t fully predict what the year will bring (astrology is still not a recognised science at the University of Edinburgh, where I work), but what I can do is draw on my expertise and data signals from around the world to suggest seven topics in public health – from potential pandemics to widespread weight-loss drugs – that I believe are likely to be important in the coming months.

So first with the not so cheery news: bird flu will continue its worrying prominence. Since my last column, the US has confirmed the first severe case of H5N1 in Louisiana from a patient infected with the strain circulating in birds (in contrast to the mild infections in humans linked to the strain in cattle). California has also issued a state of emergency over the growing number of humans infected with the disease and concerns it could mutate further. Given how widespread H5N1 is in birds, wild and domestic, across the world, and in dairy cows in the US, human infections will continue to be detected. The question is whether these remain isolated cases, each tied to contact with an infected animal, or whether we start to see clusters of human cases in the coming months – the latter would suggest the virus could be transmitting between humans, which would be the next major step in a pandemic scenario. Let’s hope this remains a scenario and not a future reality.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/QCFatZH