Zoonotic Bird Flu News since 11 Mar 2023

BIRD SHOTS [Science, 6 Apr 2023]

By JON COHEN

As an avian influenza virus devastates the poultry industry, the United States considers an unprecedented step: vaccinating its flocks

LAKESIDE, CALIFORNIA—Hilliker’s Ranch Fresh Eggs in this San Diego suburb has 30,000 chickens in three “cage-free,” open-air barns, where birds crowd the floor like rush-hour riders on a big city subway. “A cage-free aviary is a very interesting science experiment,” says Frank Hilliker, who runs the farm his grandfather started in 1942. He worries mightily about infections spreading through the massed birds. On his iPhone, he pulls up a list of the vaccines his chickens get: against Newcastle disease, infectious laryngotracheitis, coryza, colibacillosis, salmonella, infectious bronchitis, and fowlpox.

There is one disease for which his chickens have not been vaccinated: a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) that’s now racing around the world, killing 90% or more of the poultry it infects. Endemic in migratory birds, this HPAI emerged in U.S. poultry in February 2022, and to date has killed or required the culling of a record 58 million chickens, turkeys, and ducks in commercial and backyard flocks.

Hilliker, who despite the unusually chilly February morning is wearing cargo shorts and a zip-up sweatshirt—this is San Diego—has a no-nonsense demeanor mixed with a tinge of superstition from years of worrying about his chickens. His farm has never detected an HPAI, he says, knocking on a wood wall. “We’re pretty isolated here,” he says, giving another rap. But he might well use an HPAI vaccine to protect his birds, he says, if it was priced right—and allowed.

The goal of vaccination is not just to protect poultry. Well before COVID-19, epidemiologists were nervously watching two kinds of highly pathogenic influenza viruses, H5 and H7, fearing they could erupt into a human pandemic reminiscent of the 1918 flu. HPAI can infect mammals, and the current, massive outbreak has killed seals, bears, and farmed mink and infected at least seven people, killing one. Thankfully, there is no evidence the virus can spread from mammal to mammal, let alone person to person—so far. But fears are growing that the more mammals it infects, the higher the odds that it will adapt to humans.

Slowing the spread among birds could reduce the risk. “I think it is time to give serious consideration to vaccinating commercial poultry in the United States,” says Robert Webster, an emeritus influenza researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. But despite strong evidence that HPAI vaccine programs can work—mainly from China, which has aggressively vaccinated poultry over the past 2 decades—the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) does not give farmers like Hilliker the option. Instead, the country has fought HPAI by combining intensive surveillance, strict biosecurity at farms, and culling.

Skeptics of poultry vaccination say that’s the right approach. Immunizing flocks, they argue, could allow the virus to spread silently—not reducing the threat of an avian flu pandemic but simply making it more difficult to detect. And the current practice of “stamping out” outbreaks has worked: Before the current HPAI strain surfaced in U.S. flocks in February 2022, no HPAI had swept through since 2015. But in the face of the largest HPAI outbreak on record, both the United States and Europe are rethinking their hesitancy.

Many questions remain about how, exactly, to use a vaccine in countries that have relied on culling. And because of the uncertain U.S. market, companies are reluctant to invest in moving beyond the initial steps of making vaccines against the current variant and embarking on the rigorous and costly process of seeking regulatory approval. “There’s no incentive at all,” says microbiologist Mahesh Kumar, who heads global biologics R&D for Zoetis, which makes vaccines for pets and livestock and sells an HPAI vaccine outside the United States. “It’s very, very difficult for anybody to continue to invest in that space.”

And something else has kept the brakes on HPAI vaccination in both the United States and Europe: trade. Some countries—including the United States—won’t allow imports of meat or eggs from vaccinated birds.

Scientific evidence doesn’t support those bans. But as Nancy Reimer, a poultry veterinarian who provides care for Hilliker’s birds, puts it, “Some of this is political science, not poultry science.”

THE FIRST GLIMPSE of the HPAI strain now wreaking havoc came in 2010 in China’s Jiangsu province, when researchers from Yangzhou University isolated a new variant of a known subtype, H5N8, from a duck sold in a market. (The H and N refer to two viral surface proteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase.) Three years later, a similar virus was spotted in another duck, about 300 kilometers south in Zhejiang. When relatives surfaced a third time, in Korean breeder ducks the next year, a new clade was christened: 2.3.4.4b.

The march of 2.3.4.4b took an ominous turn at an island in Qinghai Lake on the Tibetan Plateau. The lake, the largest in China, provides a temporary home to some 150,000 migratory birds each year flying between Russia and India or Australia. On 1 May 2016, researchers discovered the carcass of a brown-headed gull, the first of some 150 gulls and geese at the lake found to have been infected with variants of 2.3.4.4b. The virus was evidently headed north.

That summer and fall some of the same variants turned up near the Ural mountains in Russia, and then the virus took hold in Western Europe. The resulting HPAI epidemic in poultry, researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was “the largest and most widespread … ever recorded in Europe.”

By October 2020, the virus had undergone a significant genetic change, swapping N8 for N1, but the new H5N1 2.3.4.4b proved just as transmissible as its predecessor. It spread to Africa and back to Asia. Then, in November 2020, came evidence it had jumped the Atlantic Ocean: Researchers documented a sick great black-backed gull on Newfoundland. In the following weeks and months it established multiple beachheadsin North America.

By now, 2.3.4.4b has evolved a niche unlike any HPAI ever seen. Usually HPAI infections die out in a season, but the 2.3.4.4b clade is present year-round in migratory birds. It infects so many species in so many locales that no country’s poultry flocks are ever safe.

Despite their name, HPAIs can cause mild or no disease in some avian species, including ducks. But their arrival on an unvaccinated chicken farm can be devastating. Birds may become weak and listless, stop laying eggs, develop severe diarrhea, stumble, and struggle to breathe. An entire flock can die within 2 days. By USDA regulations, just a single bird infected with HPAI requires stamping out a flock, a gruesome procedure that entails cutting off ventilation in barns or suffocating the birds with carbon dioxide or fire-fighting foam. USDA has a program that compensates producers who are forced to cull, but rebuilding the business can still mean a major financial hit.

Globally the toll is enormous. The intergovernmental World Organisation for Animal Health has tracked stamp-outs triggered by H5 and H7 infections. Between January 2005 and 2022, more than 8500 H5 outbreaks led to the culling of nearly 400 million birds, with another 30 million sacrificed to fight more than 100 outbreaks of H7s.

IN 1995, MEXICO PIONEERED an alternative approach to combating HPAI, becoming the first country to use a vaccine as well as culling to stop a virus designated H5N2. The vaccine, which cost pennies per dose, was made like the human one, by growing the virus in eggs and then inactivating it with chemicals. The campaign eliminated the virus from Mexico’s flocks in short order.

China in November 2005 upped the ante in the face of a frightening H5N1 strain that spilled over to nearly 100 humans in Asia that year. In addition to culling, it set out to vaccinate all 14 billion chicken, geese, and ducks then consumed in the country each year—the largest single vaccination effort ever for any species, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The government provided the vaccine at no cost to farmers, who were required to use it. Thirteen other countries also used H5 vaccines in poultry by 2010, but China alone accounted for 91% of the total shots given to birds—nearly 100 billion doses.

Later, China faced a new threat: an H7N9 strain that spread through flocks in multiple waves starting in 2013. People caught it, too, mainly from farming or live poultry sold at markets, and by 2017 it had sickened 1500, killing 39% of them. The human tragedy and the economic loss led China in 2017 to introduce a bivalent H5/H7 vaccine for poultry.

This Iowa farm had to cull 56,000 birds in 2015 because of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Culling flocks is a standard way to control the virus in the United States.SCOTT MORGAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

China’s HPAI vaccines have had limitations, says virologist Chen Hualan at the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, who with her colleagues studied the country’s vaccination campaign. The evolution of new variants, which immune pressure from vaccines helped to speed up, forced repeated vaccine updates. And domestic ducks—which often did not get vaccinated—provided a haven for the virus.

China’s farmers rear about 4 billion ducks each year, mostly in open fields where they mingle with wild birds and are regularly exposed to flu and other viruses. But because ducks rarely become ill from HPAI, only about 30% of duck farmers vaccinated their birds. “This explains why even though the H5 vaccine has been used in poultry in China for over 10 years, H5 virus can still be detected in the live poultry markets, mainly from ducks,” Chen and her colleagues wrote in 2018.

Some Chinese farmers shunned HPAI vaccination because of worries that it could allow infections to spread without being detected by surveillance. Farms that raise chickens for their meat (the “broilers” that are slaughtered when they are about 6 to 8 weeks old) also had less financial incentive to vaccinate than farms with egg layers, which typically produce for a year or longer.

Still, Chen’s group found that about 70% of the chickens they sampled had antibodies from the H5N1 or the H5/H7 bivalent vaccines. As a result, she and her colleagues wrote in Emerging Microbes & Infections on 2 December 2022, “even though the globally circulating H5 viruses have been detected in many species of wild birds and occasionally in ducks or geese in recent years, they have never caused problems on routinely vaccinated poultry farms in China.”

China’s success in vaccinating against H7N9 is even more compelling. The Chen team sampled more than 50,000 poultry at some 1500 markets and farms before and after the H7N9 vaccine campaign began. They found the prevalence of the virus dropped by 93.3%, and the spread of H7N9 to humans stopped altogether. No human case of H7N9 has been reported since 2019.

The effort benefits both poultry and farmers, Chen told Science, because the government does not require culling an entire farm if the virus is found in one bird. “If it is in a farm with several barns, just birds in that barn will be destroyed,” she says.

Given that success, “We recommend that any unnecessary obstacles to vaccination strategies should be removed immediately and forever,” she and her colleagues wrote in a review paper this year.

Webster also sees lessons in China’s vaccination effort, which not only tamped down HPAI in China but likely kept H7N9 influenza viruses from spreading worldwide. “It is remarkable,” he says. “I believe that Chen is justified in believing that vaccination played an important role.”

The European Union in May 2022 conceded that vaccinating might make sense and is now testing candidates against 2.3.4.4b. At an October 2022 meeting in Paris, organized under the aegis of the International Alliance for Biological Standardization, participants called for “removing unnecessary barriers” for vaccination to control HPAI.

“We cannot keep doing the same thing over and over again,” said David Swayne, a veterinarian who for 28 years ran USDA’s main HPAI research group and co-organized the meeting, which brought together academic scientists, vaccinemakers, and representatives of European governments. “The virus has changed. We’ve got to change.”

IN THE UNITED STATES, the National Chicken Council is not convinced. The organization, which represents broiler farmers, has long argued that using HPAI vaccines would lead to trade restrictions, based in part on fears of silent infections that could contaminate chicken products.

Swayne dismisses that concern, which his own group’s experiments may have helped fuel.

They gave vaccinated birds extraordinarily high “challenge” doses of virus to see how well the vaccine prevented death and reduced viral shedding. The high doses meant that vaccinated birds sometimes got infected but showed no signs of illness. But the silent infection concern is “a misinterpretation of that data,” Swayne says. Vaccinated birds exposed to more realistic, real-world virus doses, he says, are unlikely to become infected.

Even if farms missed infections, the main U.S. export is meat, usually frozen—not live birds. No evidence exists that frozen meat can transmit influenza viruses. “When you look at risk analyses, they would say the chances of that happening are low or negligible,” Swayne says.

The bottom line is that business worries often trump science, says James Sumner, who served as president of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council from 1990 to 2022 and remains a consultant there. “Many countries look for excuses to restrict trade,” he says—and many already have grievances against the United States. “The products that we export the most are the leg quarters, and we export those at a pretty low price because our industry makes its money on the upper half of the chicken, on the breast and the wings,” which Americans prefer, Sumner explains. Farmers in foreign countries “consider that unfair trade, and it is often classified as dumping,” he says. Refusing to import chicken meat from the United States if it vaccinates is a tempting retaliatory measure.

On the flip side, farmers who raise turkeys, another big branch of the U.S. poultry meat market, are more pro-vaccine because their birds are particularly susceptible to HPAI and they live for up to 6 months. “There are these divided camps,” Sumner says.

Still, the unprecedented H5N1 outbreak in the United States has altered the conversation.

Vaccination “is discussed much more widely now, and there are some people who are pushing for it,” Sumner says. “We all recognize that there are situations where vaccination would be beneficial.”

Poultry vaccinemakers say they stand ready to develop products if the market exists. Kumar says it would be wise for the government to at least order doses for USDA’s National Veterinary Stockpile now, as it did in 2016 to prepare for a variant of an H5N1 strain that had devastated poultry flocks the year before. (In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, USDA told Science that the stockpile currently contains no HPAI vaccines.)

Zoetis has produced what’s known as a master seed to make vaccine against 2.3.4.4b, Kumar says, and done initial safety and efficacy studies. Boehringer Ingelheim told Science that it, too, had “completed efficacy tests against clade 2.3.4.4b.” But both companies are waiting for a signal from USDA that it will allow use of the vaccines. “It’s not like you just turn on the button, and you have vaccine ready, right? It takes time to get it done,” Kumar says.

In March, USDA began to test four different HPAI vaccines made by agency scientists, Zoetis, and Merck. Erica Spackman, acting director of USDA’s Exotic and Emerging Avian Viral Diseases unit, says her team will challenge vaccinated chickens to see how well they’re protected against the 2.3.4.4b strain. The commercial vaccines target earlier H5 strains, but Spackman says a mismatch between a genome used to make a vaccine and the virus in circulation sometimes doesn’t matter. “Some strains are very immunogenic and that overcomes the mismatches,” she says. Spackman has little concern about vaccines creating silent infections. “Within the context of a population monitored by a surveillance program, as would be the case here, infection is not silent,” she says.

In a statement to Science, USDA said if the vaccines work, which the agency should know by June, it will look for manufacturers to produce them. (It will also consider data from European labs now testing vaccines against 2.3.4.4b, Spackman says.) Then, “there are 20 discrete stages to complete” before companies can submit data for regulatory approval, the statement says. It typically takes 2.5 to 3 years to complete that process, the agency said, but “in emergency situations manufacturers may expedite development, resulting in a shortened timeframe to licensure.”

Reimer, the veterinarian who cares for the birds at Hilliker’s farm, does not expect to be vaccinating chickens soon enough to protect them from the current HPAI wave. “I’ve had these discussions before,” Reimer says. “With this particular outbreak, I’m guessing we won’t resolve anything.” But by the time the next HPAI outbreak hits, she says, her charges may not have to face the virus unprotected.

BIRD FLU, HUMAN CASES AND THE RISK TO AUSTRALIA [ealth & Medicine, 20 Mar 2023]

By Dr Michelle Wille and Professor Ian Barr

Avian flu is continuing to spread throughout the world, infecting some mammals as it goes – but what’s the risk to Australia? Avian flu is continuing to spread throughout the world, killing wild birds and poultry en masse across the northern hemisphere, Africa and South America.

Not only is this strain of bird flu wreaking havoc on wild birds and poultry, it is responsible for numerous cases in mammals, including humans.

But what is the threat to Australia?

WHAT IS BIRD FLU?
Bird flu is a form of avian influenza that’s highly pathogenic for poultry and many wild birds.

Since 2021, we have seen the unfolding of an enormous panzootic of a particular strain of this highly pathogenic avian influenza, known as HPAI clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1.


There are current outbreaks on all continents except, for now, the Antarctic and Australia.

These outbreaks have been responsible for the deaths of more than half a billion poultry as of 28 Feb 2023, either due to the virus itself or in attempts to stop the virus spread through culling.

The number of wild bird deaths is unknown, but the scale is potentially in the millions across a great diversity of birds. So far, deaths have been recorded in some 303 different bird species.

For example, a recent outbreak in Peru reported more than 50,000 dead wild birdsacross the country’s protected areas. These outbreaks are of substantial conservation concern for wild birds, with potential population effects and, in some cases, a risk of extinction.

Of note, is that while HPAI viruses usually cause very high mortality in chickens and other poultry, with varying mortality in wild birds, there is an enormous diversity of avian influenza strains that cause no disease and circulate naturally in wild birds. These are called low pathogenic avian influenza (or LPAI) viruses.

WHAT IS THE RISK FOR HUMANS?
In addition to the avian outbreaks, numerous cases have been detected in mammals. These include outbreaks in a large Spanish mink farm, in sea lions in South Americaand a variety of human cases, most recently, a child in Cambodia.

These outbreaks have caused global concern about any potential mammal-to-mammal transmission.

Currently, this virus is still a bird adapted virus – meaning there are no confirmed cases of mammal-to-mammal transmission. The vast majority of cases reported in mammals have been in predators and scavengers that have been infected by the dead or dying birds that they’ve eaten.

So, perhaps it’s not surprising to see an increase in the number of mainly carnivorous mammalian cases given the scale of wild-bird outbreaks.

From experimental studies, we have a good idea which mutations are required for mammal-to-mammal transmission.

One of these mutations is currently widely detected in mammalian cases and occurs at lower mammalian body temperatures instead of the hotter avian body temperatures.

The other mutations of concern, which could make avian influenza viruses more transmissible in mammals, have not yet been found in the wild, but continued genomic surveillance and mutation mapping is critical to track the ongoing evolution of this virus.

To date, all human cases have been in people exposed to sick or dead birds (mainly poultry) infected with HPAI and there have been no confirmed instances of human-to-human transmission.

HPAI H5Nx has caused around 900 human infections since 2003, with an overall case fatality rate of approximately 60 per cent.

Given the large number of avian outbreaks, it’s reassuring that the number of human cases is very few. Even some of the human cases that have been initially recorded as infections with the 2.3.4.4b H5N1 viruses may have been due to carriage of the virus in the nose rather than a true infection.

This is often referred to as “environmental contamination”, resulting in a positive test for H5N1 virus in nasal swabs but the person shows no symptoms of a true infection, as has been suggested in two recent cases in Spain.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the risk for humans remains low, but is elevated for people occupationally exposed to infected birds. However, the WHO also indicates that the zoonotic risk is elevated.

Importantly, there are a number of therapeutics, like specific influenza antiviral drugs, which work well against all avian influenza viruses including H5N1 if taken early enough.

The WHO also evaluates avian influenza viruses at its bi-annual vaccine strain meeting in preparation for a potential pandemic and prepares seed viruses that could be used to produce vaccines if required.

GLOBAL RESPONSE AND RISK TO AUSTRALIA
Avian influenza is clearly a OneHealth disease – that is it affects wildlife, domestic animals and humans. So a multi-pronged OneHealth response is critical; we cannot wait until signs of human-to-human transmission occur.

Strong biosecurity is key to preventing viral incursion into poultry production and subsequent spill-over into wild birds – there’s certainly capacity for continued improvements.

More recently, vaccination has been considered as an additional tool to control spread.

Some countries, like Mexico, Vietnam and China have been vaccinating flocks for some time to try to control HPAI.

The US, UK, European Union (EU) and Australia do not vaccinate, however EU legislation has recently been changed to accommodate vaccination, but strict conditions must be met to ensure that vaccination efforts are effective and do not further drive virus evolution or cause “silent spread” (diminishes disease but does not stop infection).

These measures include making sure the vaccine is well matched to the circulating HPAI and that vaccination actually prevents infection with HPAI.

While not a silver bullet, vaccination has the potential to alleviate the burden of HPAI H5Nx on poultry when done appropriately and in combination with other exisiting approaches.

This will likely help prevent human spillover infections and would also hopefully reduce the impact on wild birds by lowering the overall environmental viral load.

Currently, Australia remains free from HPAI H5N1.

While avian influenza outbreaks have occurred here previously, they have always been caused by domestic strains that have evolved to become highly pathogenic rather than an incursion from globally circulating HPAI strains.

However, just because it hasn’t happened before, doesn’t mean this particular virus (that has become increasingly capable to also infect wild birds) will not arrive in Australia.

Millions of wild birds migrate between Asia and Australia each year, arriving from their northern hemisphere breeding grounds between September and November.

The main reason why this virus has not yet reached Australia is likely because there are no migratory duck species, which are the main movers of influenza viruses, migrating between East Asia and Australia.

However, we do know that shorebirds and seabirds are hosts for influenza, so if HPAI H5N1 were to arrive in Australia, it would most likely arrive with them.

In response to this risk, our team has performed enhanced surveillance on wild migratory birds as they arrived in Australia between September and December last year.

Thankfully all birds tested negative and there have been no indications of outbreaks in Australia since.

We will again enter a risk period of viral introduction when the migratory birds return in the second half of this year, and our teams will again be on the front lines to provide state and federal agencies rapid information to help them respond to any outbreaks – if they occur.

HPAI looks like it will continue to circulate for many years to come, so we need to maintain our long-term vigilance in Australia and work with others to try and eradicate or control this global threat.

Two dolphins die from bird flu in UK waters for the first time [inews, 16 Mar 2023]

The highly infectious H5N1 variant has previously been found in otters, foxes and grey seals in the UK
Two dolphins have died from bird flu in UK waters for the first time, the government has announced.

The sea mammals were found in separate locations, on beaches in Devon and in Pembrokeshire, last month.

Both dolphins were confirmed to have been infected with the highly infectious H5N1 variant of avian influenza which has spread around the globe during the past 18 months.

Millions of birds have died from bird flu in the latest outbreak, either from the virus itself or from culling, but scientists are concerned that it is spreading to mammals.

The virus has now been confirmed in 23 mammals in the UK. Bird flu has been discovered in dolphins in other parts of the world but these are the first cases in the UK. It has previously been found in foxes, otters and grey seals around the British Isles.

There has not so far been confirmation that the virus can spread between mammals in the wild, and most wildlife who contract avian flu are believed to have caught it from scavenging infected birds.

However there are concerns that H5N1 could potentially be spreading between mammals after the mass deaths of seals and sea lions elsewhere in the world.

The findings have been passed to the World Organisation for Animal Health.

The risk to humans from avian flu is classed as very low and the only cases have been in people who came into close contact with infected birds. There is no evidence of human to human transmission.

A spokesperson for the Animal and Plant Health Agency said: “Samples taken as part of routine wildlife surveillance have detected the presence of influenza of avian origin in two dolphins and one porpoise.

“The animals were found dead, and it is very likely they had predated on infected wild birds.

“The presence of influenza of avian origin in mammals is not new, although it is uncommon, and the risk of the H5N1 strain to non-avian UK wildlife remains low.”

The government says there is no evidence of an increased risk to non-avian wildlife following the deaths of the dolphins.

People are advised not to touch any sick or dead wild animals or birds and to wash hands thoroughly with soap after contact with any animal.

Bird flu: Nigeria is on major migratory bird routes, new strains keep appearing [The Conversation Indonesia, 16 Mar 2023]

Avian influenza is a highly contagious viral infection of birds, commonly called “bird flu”, which has been recurring in Nigeria since 2006. It has resulted in the loss of millions of birds and income for people who rely on the poultry industry. Nigeria is currently grappling with another outbreak which started in 2021.

The Conversation Africa asked Clement Meseko, a virologist and expert on animal influenza, to explain the disease’s re-occurrences.

What is bird flu? How does it spread? Is it dangerous to humans?

Bird flu is scientifically known as avian influenza and the pathogenic form as highly pathogenic avian influenza. It is a disease in birds (specifically poultry) caused by an influenza virus. It is highly pathogenic, meaning it causes tissue and organ damage in the host, and can kill more than 75% of the infected flock.

Waterfowls like ducks are natural reservoirs of the disease. They can harbour avian flu without showing any symptoms. Many waterfowls and other wild birds are migratory, moving across and between continents – this brings them into contact with resident birds and domestic poultry. Their body secretions and excretions may contain virus that can then infect other birds and poultry.

The symptoms in infected poultry include sudden death, respiratory distress, cough and haemorrhages in tissue and organs. Other animals, including pigs, horses and dogs can also be infected – and so can humans. In fact, it is zoonotic and therefore can be fatal for humans too.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus infections have infected more than 880 people with about 50% case fatality globally.

The virus also has the capacity to cause a pandemic: an influenza virus of avian origin, but not the currently circulating strain, caused the 1918 pandemic that ultimately killed about 50 million people – worse than the current COVID-19 pandemic .

How many outbreaks have there been in Nigeria since 2006?
Nigeria’s first outbreak of bird flu was confirmed in January 2006, the first epidemic in poultry in Africa. It killed millions of birds and millions more were culled to contain its spread. The economic and livelihood loss was huge as the disease spread all over the country with 100% mortality in many cases. The estimate of the economic cost of bird flu outbreak in Nigeria was over nine billion Nigerian naira (about US$32 million) – with people losing investment, livelihood and jobs.

The disease was brought under control by 2008 thanks to stringent biosecurity measures like depopulation (culling), decontamination and control of poultry movement. In 2015 another strain emerged in Nigeria. Since then, new strains keep appearing.

Live bird markets, common across Nigeria, are the main points of spread of bird flu while wetlands are the points of initial transmissions. Local waterfowls and other birds that may harbour avian flu come into contact with other bird species and with people. In 2006, 312 cases and in 2015, 256 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza were recorded.

What should Nigeria be doing differently?
The disease may become endemic in Nigeria if circulation continuous and detection of the same strain is established. If a disease is constantly circulating in reservoir hosts it will lead to spill over to poultry and humans.

If that’s the case, biosecurity measures must be stepped up. For instance, the government may consider other measures in addition to biosecurity. This may include controlled and regulated vaccination. There are vaccines. They have been used in Egypt, China, Indonesia with a mixture of failure and success. Vaccines only reduce the impact of the disease but do not prevent infection or re-infection.

Those in the agricultural sector also need to introduce effective control measures at live bird markets and in the way poultry is traded more broadly. Measures would include restructuring the live bird markets, discouraging the mixing of species, the introduction of plastic cages and crates that can be easily cleaned and disinfected. Frequent cleaning, disinfection and decontamination of live bird market environments is very important for disease containment.

You’ve described as Nigeria was an “ecological sink” for such viruses. Please explain
In the research that examined the outbreak of the 2015-2016 bird flu, we found that west Africa was the epicentre of the virus that was later found in other sub-Saharan African regions – the central, eastern and southern African countries. In particular, within west Africa, Nigeria was the most important point of virus introduction and a central hub in the virus spread.

Bird flu is mostly introduced into Nigeria through the presence and activities of wild birds. For instance, in the 2015-2016 outbreak we identified four virus introductions into Nigeria likely from east Europe.

These birds travel across continents and countries through multiple international migratory routes, in much the same way that airlines move across the world on designated routes. Three major wild bird migratory routes from Asia and Europe transverse Nigeria. That’s good news for biodiversity but bad news for disease control.

Bird watchers and ornithologists have found that migratory birds from Europe move into Nigeria every year during the cold harmattan season (November - February). This is the peak time for avian flu outbreaks.

Nigeria is the most affected African country in terms of the frequency and burden of avian flu.

This makes it the destination “sink” of the strains that may be circulating in Europe at any given time.

Because we can’t change birds’ routes or habits, it would be up to Nigerian authorities to make sure it keeps its local birds and people as safe as possible. This would include surveillance of wild birds at wetlands and the monitoring of viral infections. Early detection is vital for early warning, risk analysis and control of infection.

'Like no outbreak we've seen': Will spring migration spike often-deadly bird flu cases? [Star Tribune, 16 Mar 2023]

By Bob Timmons

A year after a new outbreak took a toll on wild birds, wildlife health specialists are remaining cautious.

Minnesota wildlife health specialists have learned something from a year ago when a deadly bird flu outbreak began killing wild birds like bald eagles, hawks and owls: the virus remains a serious threat even if signs of its presence ebbs at times.

Now, with spring migration ahead and reports of new cases in Central and South America, attention is heightened. Migratory waterfowl, which naturally host some form of the virus, are known drivers of transmission.

"This outbreak continues to unfold like no other outbreak we have ever seen," said Victoria Hall, executive director of the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota. Each year the center treats upward of 1,000 sick and injured birds.

The three most common species treated are great horned owls, bald eagles and red-tailed hawks. All were seen exponentially more in 2022, said Hall, attributed to an outbreak that originated in Europe. As of March 6, the center has tested 1,051 birds, with 215 positive cases. All but one raptor with bird flu died.

Great horned owls especially have been hard-hit by several factors, Hall said. They are cagey hunters and more likely to eat an infected waterfowl, or hunt in areas where geese and ducks live and are shedding the virus through bodily secretions and feces. The virus is endemic to swans, ducks and geese, some of which show no signs of illness. Plus, Minnesota has a significant waterfowl population that overwinters.

The owls in some cases were bringing the virus back to their nests — and their young, which already had hatched when the outbreak was peaking last spring.

"Entire family units would come in sick at one time, which we did not see with other species," said Hall, recalling a case of four or five owls together. Since last March, 92 of 215 positive cases have been great horned owls. Only one survived and was released back into the wild.

"Any time you are taking out breeding pairs, you have to think about population impact," she added.

As the virus shifts, specialists have shifted tactics, too, Hall said.

The center is working with the Center for Disease Control and wildlife managers with the Department of Agriculture, in addition to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, dialing in on how to respond and sharing knowledge.

The Raptor Center is testing for antibody levels in birds arriving at the center for reasons other than the flu to learn if raptors are surviving infection in the wild, Hall said.

"There is so much about wildife we are learning in real time, how this virus is working its way through," Hall said. "We can generate some of the science and tell the community what we are seeing."

For its part, the DNR partners with federal wildlife officials to test waterfowl seasonally for HPAI and has for several years. DNR staff were out last week in the south metro capturing dabbling ducks like mallards, with a goal of 110 swab samples this winter, said Wildlife Health Program Supervisor Erik Hildebrand.

The agency also investigates when there are reports of five or more sick or dead birds over a short period of time in a localized area. Carcasses are collected for testing at the University of Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Bird flu was confirmed in the deaths of American crows found in Hennepin County in mid-to-late January.

The Wildlife Health Program has to be mindful of all wildlife. Last May, DNR specialists investigated and confirmed the first case of bird flu in a mammal in Minnesota, when a sick fox kit was found in Anoka County. Sporadic infections have been reported, too, in foxes, skunks, bears and sea lions in the United States, Canada and other countries. Most recently, the World Organization for Animal Health reported six more U.S. cases, including a river otter in Wisconsin.

Hildebrand said people who see dead or dying birds or other wildlife should call the DNR's hotline at 888-646-6367.

"I hope we don't see what we saw last spring," he added.

Bird flu associated with hundreds of seal deaths in New England in 2022 [Science Daily, 15 Mar 2023]

Highly pathogenic avian influenza connected to a large scale mortality event in wild mammals
Summary:
Researchers have found that an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was associated with the deaths of more than 330 New England harbor and gray seals along the North Atlantic coast in June and July 2022, and the outbreak was connected to a wave of avian influenza in birds in the region.

Researchers at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University found that an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was associated with the deaths of more than 330 New England harbor and gray seals along the North Atlantic coast in June and July 2022, and the outbreak was connected to a wave of avian influenza in birds in the region.

HPAI is more commonly known as bird flu, and the H5N1 strain has been responsible for about 60 million poultry deaths in the U.S. since October 2020, with similar numbers in Europe. The virus was known to have spilled over from birds into mammals, such as mink, foxes, skunk, and bears, but those were mostly small, localized events. This study is among the first to directly connect HPAI to a larger scale mortality event in wild mammals.

The co-first authors on the paper -- virologist and senior scientist Wendy Puryear and post-doctoral researcher Kaitlin Sawatzki, who both work in the Runstadler Lab at Cummings School -- have been researching viruses in seals for years. They credit their findings in the new study to a unique and robust data set made possible by a collaboration with wildlife clinics and rehabilitation and response organizations in the region, in particular with Tufts Wildlife Clinic and director Maureen Murray, V03, associate clinical professor at Cummings School, and an author on the paper.

"We have a better resolution and greater depth of detail on this virus than before because we were able to sequence it and detect changes almost in real time," said Puryear. "And we have pairings of samples, sometimes literally from a bird and a seal on the same beach."

The clinic has been conducting avian influenza surveillance on birds and some mammals since January 2022, shortly after this strain of avian influenza took a trans-Atlantic journey from Europe into the U.S. Through this testing, the team found a wide range of flu viruses, including at least three strains that crossed the Atlantic, and they witnessed consistent waves of infection in birds.

At the same time, in collaboration with NOAA's Greater Atlantic Region Marine Mammal Stranding Network, they were able to screen nearly all seals that came through the network, whether or not the animal appeared sick. The stranding network is composed of experts from state and federal wildlife and fisheries agencies, non-profit rehabilitation and response facilities, aquariums, and academic institutions who respond to strandings.

"Because of the genetic data that we gathered, we were the first to see a strain of the virus that's unique to New England. The data set will allow us to more meaningfully address questions of which animals are passing the virus to which animals and how the virus is changing," said Sawatzki.

How HPAI Is Transmitted
In addition to poultry, H5N1 also has had a huge impact on wild birds, especially sea birds. Multiple locations around the globe have experienced large die-offs, such as recently in Peru, where the virus killed 60,000 pelicans, penguins, and gulls.

At the time of the seal mortality event in New England, the virus was hitting gulls particularly hard, the researchers found. There are lots of ways gulls and other birds may transmit the virus to seals, they said. Seals and sea birds are coastal animals living in the same areas that have environmental contact, if not direct contact, since they share the same water and shoreline. A seal may contract the virus if it comes in contact with a sick bird's excrement or water contaminated by that excrement, or if it preys upon an infected bird.

The accepted knowledge is that H5N1 is nearly 100% fatal for domestic and wild birds other than waterfowl, and the same is proving true when it comes to spillover in wild mammals. All the seals that tested positive for HPAI were deceased at the time of sampling or succumbed shortly after. None of the animals that tested positive recovered. However, it's possible some asymptomatic or recovered cases never came into the stranding networks.

In addition to the seal mortality event in New England, which was the first time H5N1 was detected in marine mammals in the wild, other locations have lost marine mammals to the virus. Peru announced about 3,500 sea lions died from the virus, Canada reported a seal mortality event along the St. Lawrence Estuary, and there was a similar event with seals in the Caspian Sea, according to news reports from Russia.

A hotly debated topic among scientists is whether there has been mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI between seals.

"It's not surprising that you might have transmission between the seals, because it has happened with low pathogenic avian influenza," said Puryear. "However, we can't say definitively whether or not there has been mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI."

"To get strong evidence of mammal-to-mammal transmission, you need two things: lots of infected animals and time," explained Sawatzki. "Time for the virus to mutate, and time for the mutated virus to be transmitted to another seal. As the virus acquires mutations, we can see shared mutations in the sequences that are specific only to mammals and that haven't been seen in a bird before. We had the numbers, but this outbreak didn't last long enough to provide evidence for seal-to-seal transmission."

The research team found evidence that the virus mutated in a small number of seals. But fortunately, they have not seen a case of bird flu in seals along the Atlantic coast since the end of last summer. However, stranding season is about to start for harbor seals and gray seals, so they are bracing themselves for what might happen.

Prevention and Risk to Humans
The risk to the public remains low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since December 2021, less than 10 human cases of H5N1 have been reported globally, and those cases occurred in people with direct exposure to infected poultry. There are no documented cases of human transmission for this variant.

However, there is the possibility it could become a larger issue for human health. Avian influenza emerged in 1996, and since 2003, 868 cases of human infection with H5N1 have been reported worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, 457 were fatal, roughly a 50% fatality rate.

"And that's why people get nervous about it," Puryear said.

There is a single-dose vaccine available for poultry, but it's not currently administered on a large scale -- in part because of cost and logistics, and in part because there's some concern it may make future surveillance of the virus more difficult. There's not much that can be done in terms of responding to the virus for wildlife, particularly given the scale at which infection is occurring.

Biosecurity is important in limiting the ways in which the virus can spread between and within species, the researchers said. For example, wild birds should be kept separate from domestic birds, such as backyard chickens. In addition, thorough and timely surveillance of domestic animals and wildlife is key to understanding how the virus is evolving to prepare the best possible vaccines and treatments.

Citation: Research reported in this article was supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease under award 75N93021C00014. Complete information on authors, funders, and conflicts of interest is available in the published paper.

Story Source:
Materials provided by Tufts University. Original written by Angela Nelson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
1. Puryear W, Sawatzki K, Hill N, Foss A, Stone JJ, Doughty L, et al. Highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) virus outbreak in New England seals, United States. Emerg Infect Dis., 2023 DOI: 10.3201/eid2904.221538

Scientists Investigate a Bird Flu Outbreak in Seals [The New York Times, 15 Mar 2023]

By Emily Anthes

Wild birds passed the virus to seals in New England at least twice last summer, a new study suggests.

Last summer, the highly contagious strain of avian influenza that had been spreading through North American birds made its way into marine mammals, causing a spike in seal strandings along the coast of Maine. In June and July, more than 150 dead or ailing seals washed ashore.

Now, a study provides new insight into the outbreak. Of the 41 stranded seals tested for the virus, nearly half were infected with it, scientists reported on Wednesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. It is likely that wild birds introduced the virus to seals at least twice, the researchers concluded. In several seals, the virus had mutations that are associated with adaptation to mammals.

The risk to humans remains low, and the seal outbreak waned quickly, the scientists said.

“It was a dead-end event, as far as we can tell,” said Kaitlin Sawatzki, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and an author of the new paper. “The virus that entered into those seals has not persisted.”

But the report comes amid growing concerns that the virus, which has already caused the largest bird flu outbreak in the nation’s history, could adapt to spread more efficiently among mammals, potentially sparking a new pandemic.

It remains unclear whether the seals were spreading the virus to one another or primarily picking it up from birds. But the number of affected seals suggests that either the virus spreads easily among the marine mammals or that the barrier for bird-to-seal transmission is low.

“We truly don’t know if it’s transmitting from bird to seal, bird to seal, bird to seal 100 times over or if it’s going into a couple of seals and then spreading,” said Wendy Puryear, a virologist at the Tufts veterinary school and an author of the new paper. “Both are possible,” she added. “Neither are great.”

Either scenario calls for closer monitoring of seals, said David Stallknecht, an expert on wildlife diseases and influenza at the University of Georgia, who was not involved in the research.

“We need to just keep our eyes on them,” he said. “The easiest way to tell if this persists in seals is to keep testing them.”

The current version of H5N1 has become unusually widespread in wild birds and has spilled over repeatedly into mammals, including bobcats, raccoons and foxes. Scientists believe that most wild mammals are contracting the virus directly from birds.

But a bird flu outbreak on a Spanish mink farm last fall suggested that the virus could spread efficiently among some mammalian species. And a mass die-off of sea lions in Peru has raised concerns that marine mammals might be spreading the virus to one another, too.

Seals are known to be susceptible to avian influenza, and other versions of the virus have previously caused outbreaks in the animals.

The new study is a collaboration between researchers at several academic institutions and wildlife organizations, including Marine Mammals of Maine and New England Wildlife Centers, as well as federal scientists.

The researchers collected samples from 1,079 wild birds and 132 gray seals and harbor seals stranded along the North Atlantic coast from Jan. 20 to July 31, 2022. “That gave us a really powerful ability to see what is happening in the birds and the seals in the same time in the same region,” Dr. Puryear said.

There were two waves of flu in wild birds, the researchers found. The first, which peaked in March 2022, primarily affected raptors, while the second, which began in June, hit gulls and sea ducks known as eiders.

No seals tested positive for avian influenza during the first wave of bird infections. But during the summer stranding event, 19 of 41 seals tested positive.

The researchers found two slightly different versions of the virus in the seals. One matched what was circulating in terns, while the other resembled what was circulating in a broader array of birds, including gulls and eiders. The finding suggests that the virus spilled over at least twice.

Because these seals do not typically eat birds, the scientists suspect that the animals are picking up the virus from the environment, perhaps through contact with bird droppings.
Viral samples from the seals also had mutations that were rare or absent in birds. Three seal samples had mutations that have been shown to improve viral replication or increase virulence in mammals.

Such mutations are not unique. In another recent study, a team of Canadian scientists found the same mutations in some viral samples taken from bird-flu-infected foxes. “When there’s a bird-to-mammalian spillover event, they seem to be acquired to pretty quickly,” Dr. Sawatzki said.

The presence of these mutations is not, in and of itself, a reason to “sound the alarm,” Dr. Stallknecht said. But continued surveillance is necessary not only to safeguard human health but also to protect wild animals from a virus that has already proved devastating.

“These emerging diseases need to be looked at on a bigger scale than just ‘pandemic potential,’” he said, “because they affect a lot of other species on the globe.”

Europe's Bird Flu Outbreak Raises Concerns [Precision Vaccinations, 14 Mar 2023]

by Robert Carlson

Avian influenza is spreading in birds, mammals, and infecting people.

Since late 2021, a global shift has occurred in the ecology of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) of the H5 subtype. The continual spread of H5 HPAI (bird flu) is cause for concern, given the high mortality in birds, mammals, and some humans.

'Because past influenza pandemics originated from animal reservoirs, we argue that it is crucial to step up actions both to prevent H5 HPAI from becoming a future pandemic,' wrote Marion P G Koopmans. Viroscience Department, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Netherlands and colleagues in The Lancet Infectious Diseases on March 7, 2023.

To visualize the current impact across Europe, the European Food Safety Agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and the European Union published an assessment of bird flu data collected from December 2022 to March 1, 2023.

This analysis found HAPI clade 2.3.4.4b was reported in domestic (522) and wild (1,138) birds in 24 countries.

An unexpected number of HPAI virus detections in sea birds were observed, mainly in gull species, particularly in black-headed gulls in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy.

The close genetic relationship among viruses collected from black-headed gulls suggests a southward spread of the HAPI virus.

Moreover, the genetic analyses indicate that the virus persisted in Europe in residential wild birds during and after the summer months.

And might increase during the coming months as breeding bird colonies move inland with possible overlap with poultry production areas.

Worldwide, the bird flu virus continued to spread southward in the Americas, from Mexico to southern Chile.

The Peruvian pelican was the most frequently reported infected species, with thousands of deaths reported.

The reporting of bird flu in mammals (sea lions) also continued, probably linked to feeding on infected wild birds.

Since October 2022, six A(H5N1) detections in humans were reported from Cambodia (a family cluster with two people, clade 2.3.2.1c), China (2, clade 2.3.4.4b), Ecuador (1, clade 2.3.4.4b), and Vietnam (1, clade 2.3.4.4b), as well as two A(H5N6) human infections from China.

This 43-page ECDC report says the risk of bird flu infection in Europe is assessed as low for the general population and low to moderate for occupationally or otherwise exposed people.
However, the number of mammals infected with A(H5N1) viruses and the detection of viruses carrying markers for mammalian adaptation in other genes, such as the PB2 that correlated with increased replication and virulence in mammals in Canada, South America, and the U.S. is of concern for humans.

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and other agencies, have approved bird flu vaccines for people.

In the U.S., the Audenza vaccine was approved in 2020 and would become available during an outbreak.

Furthermore, the U.S. government has funded initiatives to develop new bird flu vaccines.

Over 10% of Japan's Chickens to be Killed This Season as Avian Influenza Rages, Chicken Farmers [Mainichi Shimbun, 13 Mar 2023]

by Toru Morinaga

Since October 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza has been raging across Japan, killing a record number of chickens and other animals. The price of chicken eggs is also at an all-time high. Koichi Tanaka, 78, who has supported the Tokyo metropolitan area for half a century in Ibaraki, the "chicken and egg kingdom," had his chicken coop emptied after the first round of culls.

The poultry farm he had spent half a century building was...
It was around 10:00 a.m. on December 20, 2010. The employee reported that 170 adult chickens had died in one of the six chicken coops at Tanaka Egg Farm, an egg-laying and poultry farm in Kasama City, Ibaraki Prefecture. The thought crossed my mind, "Could it be ......? In the afternoon, another 80 birds died, and on the following day, the simple test confirmed that they were positive. There was nothing Mr. Tanaka could do while prefectural officials in protective clothing spent two days disposing of all 106,000 birds on the farm with carbon dioxide gas.

Born and raised on a poultry farm, he started his own business around 1970 with 2,000 birds. Over the course of half a century, he has grown to employ nine employees and ship 90,000 to 100,000 eggs per day.

As a veteran poultry farmer, he also served as vice president of the Prefectural Poultry Farmers Association, and thought he had taken sufficient measures to prevent infection. He drew curtains over the skylights of his chicken coops to keep out wild birds and their droppings, and changed his boots when entering the coop. Vehicles entering and leaving the premises were disinfected, and rodents were regularly exterminated and slaked lime was sprayed to prevent small animals from entering. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries is currently analyzing the cause of the outbreak. I thought we had prevented the outbreak because of the measures we had taken, but it may have just been a coincidence that there were no outbreaks," he muses. He has not been attending meetings of the association for some time because he feels uncomfortable.

A chicken coop where an outbreak of avian influenza was confirmed. A curtain was drawn over the skylight at Tanaka Egg in Ikenobe, Kasama City, Ibaraki Prefecture, at 0:09 p.m. on February 16, 2023.

A chicken coop where an outbreak of avian influenza was confirmed. A curtain was drawn over the skylight at Tanaka Chicken Egg in Ikenobe, Kasama City, Ibaraki Prefecture, at 0:09 p.m. on February 16, 2023 (photo by Toru Morinaga).

In mid-February, employees at Tanaka Chicken Egg were busy disinfecting chicken coops. All buildings had been disinfected three times, with several more scheduled. For a while, they were in a state of despair, but encouraged by their eldest son, who serves as managing director, they changed their mind, saying, "We intend to resume operations once we pass an inspection (by the Livestock Health and Sanitation Department) to see if the virus is detected in the walls and other parts of the poultry house.

With the advice of the Livestock Health Center, the company has set up "front rooms" in all the buildings where the poultry are changed before entering the coops in preparation for the reopening, which is expected in April. The plan is to install pipes to spray disinfectant on the roofs of the chicken coops by the fall, when migratory birds are expected to fly in.

Invisible root cause of the outbreak
The reason why the fear of another outbreak of avian influenza persists is that no fundamental solution is in sight, even though it has been nearly 20 years since 2004, when the first outbreak of avian influenza occurred in Japan in 79 years.

The number of birds killed this season has exceeded 15 million nationwide, a record high. The majority of these were egg-laying hens, which accounted for more than 10% of the approximately 137.29 million hens kept nationwide (as of February 2010). In Ibaraki alone, which had the largest number of egg-laying hens in Japan at approximately 15.14 million (as of February 2010), approximately 4.28 million, or nearly 30%, have already been disposed of. In March, the wholesale price of eggs, which had been kept low for many years, reached an average of 337 yen per kilogram of medium-size eggs (Tokyo area, as of March 9), the highest price since 1993, when statistics were first published.

The stable supply of "price superiority" is wavering. Mr. Tanaka says, "I hope they will allow the use of vaccines," but according to the Animal Health Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, there is still no vaccine that can prevent the infection itself. Although four types of vaccines that are effective in suppressing the onset of the disease have been approved, the quarantine guidelines do not permit their use because "if symptoms are suppressed, detection may be delayed, and the infection may spread.

The Japan Poultry Farmers Association, a group of poultry farmers from across the country, has begun to request that the government take the lead in conducting research and studies on vaccines. In fact, calls for vaccination and development of a vaccine were also raised in 2004, mainly by the industry. The association sought approval for the use of a vaccine on the grounds that it could significantly reduce the amount of virus produced by infected people and could be effective in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. However, nearly 20 years have passed without any progress in the debate.

We have been making efforts to ensure a stable supply of safe eggs, but there are still concerns. We want consumers to know what is going on. The soil on the site where the hens and eggs were buried remains heaped up like a tomb.

Bird Flu Continues Decimating Mammals [Precision Vaccinations, 12 Mar 2023]

By Karen McClorey Hackett

The U.K. National History Museum recently reported sea lions in Peru are among the latest victims of a version of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) known as bird flu.

The HAPI virus has killed about 3,500 South American sea lions in Peru as of March 9, 2023.
The Peruvian government has reported that since November 2022, around 3% of the country's sea lions have died due to HPAI infections.

Peru, like many South American countries, believes HAPI was brought south by pelicans before jumping into the marine mammals.

In the Northern Hemisphere, Canada and the United States have reported multiple mammalian fatalities related to bird flu infections.

The United States Department of Agriculture and the World Animal Health Information System reported during March 2023, over 131 HAPI H5N1 detections of wild striped skunks, black bears, raccoons, and red foxes.

? The California Department of Fish and Wildlife received confirmation on February 15, 2023, that an adult bobcat died from the Eurasian strain of HPAI H5N1.
? The Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed on February 9, 2023, several cases of HPAI in free-ranging wildlife (black bear, skunk, mountain lion).
? The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks confirmed on January 17, 2023, three juvenile grizzly bears tested positive for HAPI.

While there are no vaccines that protect birds or mammals from H5N1 infections, there are bird flu vaccines for humans.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration authorized CSL Seqirus' Audenz vaccine on January 31, 2020, and RAPIVAB in 2022.

And the U.S. government has financially supported the development of newer bird flu vaccines for people.

Furthermore, the government reminds everyone that annual flu shots are effective against certain types of influenza, but they are not effective against bord flu viruses.

Tainai City Poultry Farm Confirmed Infected with Avian Influenza by Simple Inspection [NHK, 11 Mar 2023]

It has been confirmed that dead chickens at a poultry farm in Tainai City, Niigata Prefecture, were infected with avian influenza.

The prefectural government plans to begin the disposal of approximately 330,000 chickens being raised if the highly pathogenic virus, which has a high fatality rate, is detected.

On the morning of the 11th, a poultry farm in Tainai City reported to the prefectural government that it had noticed an increase in the number of dead chickens and other abnormalities, and as a result of a simple test, it was confirmed that the dead chickens were infected with avian influenza.

As a result, the prefectural government ordered the poultry farm to restrict the movement of the chickens and to thoroughly disinfect them.

If the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, which has a high mortality rate, is detected in the ongoing genetic testing, the prefecture plans to begin the disposal of approximately 330,000 chickens raised for egg production at this poultry farm.

The prefectural government held a task force meeting at 5:00 p.m. on November 11, attended by Governor Hanazumi, to discuss future measures.

In Tainai City, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus was detected at another poultry farm this month, and the disposal of approximately 680,000 chickens was completed on November 11.

The prefectural government is calling for a calm response, saying that there have been no confirmed cases of avian influenza infection in Japan from eating chicken meat or eggs.

According to the prefectural government, if the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus is confirmed by genetic testing, this will be the fifth case of avian influenza at poultry farms and other facilities in the prefecture this season, following 13 cases in Kagoshima, 6 in Ibaraki, Chiba, and Hiroshima prefectures.

In response to the successive confirmations of avian influenza, the prefectural government has requested poultry farm operators to take extra precautions by thoroughly changing their boots when entering farms, and by checking again for holes where small animals can enter, such as ventilation fans and air vents, and other out-of-sight areas.

(translated by M.Y.)

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Whether or not you believe in God, this message is a "must-read"!!

Throughout time, we can see how we have been strategically conditioned coming to this point where we are on the verge of a cashless society. Did you know that the Bible foretold of this event almost 2,000 years ago?

In Revelation 13:16-18, it states,

"He (the false prophet who deceives many by his miracles--Revelation 19:20) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."

Referring to the last generation, this could only be speaking of a cashless society. Why? Revelation 13:17 says that we cannot buy or sell unless we receive the mark of the beast. If physical money was still in use, we could buy or sell with one another without receiving the mark. This would contradict scripture that states we need the mark to buy or sell!

These verses could not be referring to something purely spiritual as scripture references two physical locations (our right hand or forehead) stating the mark will be on one "OR" the other. If this mark was purely spiritual, it would indicate both places, or one--not one OR the other!

This is where it comes together. It is shocking how accurate the Bible is concerning the implantable RFID microchip. Here are notes from someone named Carl Sanders who worked with a team of engineers to help develop this RFID chip:

"Carl Sanders sat in seventeen New World Order meetings with heads-of-state officials such as Henry Kissinger and Bob Gates of the C.I.A. to discuss plans on how to bring about this one-world system. The government commissioned Carl Sanders to design a microchip for identifying and controlling the peoples of the world—a microchip that could be inserted under the skin with a hypodermic needle (a quick, convenient method that would be gradually accepted by society).

Carl Sanders, with a team of engineers behind him, with U.S. grant monies supplied by tax dollars, took on this project and designed a microchip that is powered by a lithium battery, rechargeable through the temperature changes in our skin. Without the knowledge of the Bible (Brother Sanders was not a Christian at the time), these engineers spent one-and-a-half-million dollars doing research on the best and most convenient place to have the microchip inserted.

Guess what? These researchers found that the forehead and the back of the hand (the two places the Bible says the mark will go) are not just the most convenient places, but are also the only viable places for rapid, consistent temperature changes in the skin to recharge the lithium battery. The microchip is approximately seven millimeters in length, .75 millimeters in diameter, about the size of a grain of rice. It is capable of storing pages upon pages of information about you. All your general history, work history, criminal record, health history, and financial data can be stored on this chip.

Brother Sanders believes that this microchip, which he regretfully helped design, is the “mark” spoken about in Revelation 13:16–18. The original Greek word for “mark” is “charagma,” which means a “scratch or etching.” It is also interesting to note that the number 666 is actually a word in the original Greek. The word is “chi xi stigma,” with the last part, “stigma,” also meaning “to stick or prick.” Carl believes this is referring to a hypodermic needle when they poke into the skin to inject the microchip."

Mr. Sanders asked a doctor what would happen if the lithium contained within the RFID microchip leaked into the body. The doctor replied by saying a terrible sore would appear in that location. This is what the book of Revelation says:

"And the first (angel) went, and poured out his vial on the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore on the men which had the mark of the beast, and on them which worshipped his image" (Revelation 16:2).

You can read more about it here--and to also understand the mystery behind the number 666: [url=https://2ruth.org]HTTPS://2RUTH.ORG[/url]

The third angel's warning in Revelation 14:9-11 states,

"Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.'"

Great hope is in our midst, and is coming in a mighty way--the greatest revival for Jesus in the history of the world where we will see the most souls come to Him of all tribes, tongues, nations, and peoples (Rev. 7:9-10); for we have this promise in God's Word in the midst of these dark times:

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years (not literal--rather a spiritual label for time spent in eternity); and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while (when the Antichrist and false prophet will rise up and God will test the world)." (Revelation 20:1-3)

"The coming of the lawless one (the Antichrist) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)"

Who is Barack Obama, and why is he still around?

So what about his name? The meaning of someone's name can say a lot about a person. God throughout history has given names to people that have a specific meaning tied to their lives. How about the name Barack Obama? Let us take a look at what may be hiding beneath the surface.

Jesus states in Luke 10:18, "...I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

The Hebrew Strongs word (H1299) for "lightning": "bârâq" (baw-rawk)

In Isaiah chapter 14, verse 14, we read about Lucifer (Satan) saying in his heart:

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High."

In the verses in Isaiah that refer directly to Lucifer, several times it mentions him falling from the heights or the heavens. The Hebrew word for the heights or heavens used here is Hebrew Strongs 1116: "bamah"--Pronounced (bam-maw')

In Hebrew, the letter "Waw" or "Vav" is often transliterated as a "U" or "O," and it is primarily used as a conjunction to join concepts together. So to join in Hebrew poetry the concept of lightning (Baraq) and a high place like heaven or the heights of heaven (Bam-Maw), the letter "U" or "O" would be used. So, Baraq "O" Bam-Maw or Baraq "U" Bam-Maw in Hebrew poetry similar to the style written in Isaiah, would translate literally to "Lightning from the heights." The word "Satan" in Hebrew is a direct translation, therefore "Satan."

When Jesus told His disciples in Luke 10:18 that He beheld Satan fall like lightning from heaven, if this were to be spoken by a Jewish Rabbi today influenced by the poetry in the book of Isaiah, he would say these words in Hebrew--the words of Jesus in Luke 10:18 as, and I saw Satan as Baraq O Bam-Maw.

Malie and Natasha are the names of Obama's daughters. If we were to write those names backward (the devil does things backwards) it would be "ailam ahsatan". Now if we remove the letters that spell "Alah" (the false god of Islam being Allah), we would get "I am Satan". Coincidence? I don't think so!

Obama's campaign logo when he ran in 2008 was a sun over the horizon in the west, with the landscape as the flag of the United States. In the Isalmic religion, they have their own messiah that they are waiting for called the 12th Imam, or the Mahdi (the Antichrist of the Bible), and one prophecy concerning this man's appearance is the sun rising in the west.

"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— saying with a loud voice, 'Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.'" (Revelation 14:6-7)

Why have the words of Jesus in His Gospel accounts regarding His death, burial, and resurrection, been translated into over 3,000 languages, and nothing comes close (the Quran about 110 languages)? Because the same Spirit of God (YHVH) who created all people likewise transcends all people; therefore the power of His Word is not limited by people; while all other religions are man-made, therefore they tend to primarily stay within their own culture. The same God who speaks to all people through His creation of the heavens and earth that draws all people around the world likewise has sent His Word to the ends of the earth so that we may come to personally know Him to be saved in spirit and in truth through His Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus stands alone among the other religions that say to rightly weigh the scales of good and evil and to make sure you have done more good than bad in this life. Is this how we conduct ourselves justly in a court of law? Bearing the image of God, is this how we project this image into reality?

Our good works cannot save us. If we step before a judge, being guilty of a crime, the judge will not judge us by the good we have done, but rather by the crimes we have committed. If we as fallen humanity, created in God's image, pose this type of justice, how much more a perfect, righteous, and Holy God?

God has brought down His moral laws through the 10 commandments given to Moses at Mt. Siani. These laws were not given so we may be justified, but rather that we may see the need for a savior. They are the mirror of God's character of what He has written in our hearts, with our conscious bearing witness that we know that it is wrong to steal, lie, dishonor our parents, murder, and so forth.

We can try and follow the moral laws of the 10 commandments, but we will never catch up to them to be justified before a Holy God. That same word of the law given to Moses became flesh about 2,000 years ago in the body of Jesus Christ. He came to be our justification by fulfilling the law, living a sinless perfect life that only God could fulfill.

The gap between us and the law can never be reconciled by our own merit, but the arm of Jesus is stretched out by the grace and mercy of God. And if we are to grab on, through faith in Him, He will pull us up being the one to justify us. As in the court of law, if someone steps in and pays our fine, even though we are guilty, the judge can do what is legal and just and let us go free. That is what Jesus did almost 2,000 years ago on the cross. It was a legal transaction being fulfilled in the spiritual realm by the shedding of His blood with His last word's on the cross crying out, "It is finished!" (John 19:30).

For God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). This is why in Isaiah chapter 53, where it speaks of the coming Messiah and His soul being a sacrifice for our sins, why it says it pleased God to crush His only begotten Son.

This is because the wrath that we deserve was justified by being poured out upon His Son. If that wrath was poured out on us, we would all perish to hell forever. God created a way of escape by pouring it out on His Son whose soul could not be left in Hades but was raised and seated at the right hand of God in power.

So now when we put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), where God no longer sees the person who deserves His wrath, but rather the glorious image of His perfect Son dwelling in us, justifying us as if we received the wrath we deserve, making a way of escape from the curse of death; now being conformed into the image of the heavenly man walking in a new nature, and no longer in the image of the fallen man Adam.

Now what we must do is repent and put our trust and faith in the savior, confessing and forsaking our sins, and to receive His Holy Spirit that we may be born again (for Jesus says we must be born again to see and enter the Kingdom of God in John chapter 3). This is not just head knowledge of believing in Jesus, but rather receiving His words, taking them to heart, so that we may truly be transformed into the image of God. Where we no longer live to practice sin, but rather turn from our sins and practice righteousness through faith in Him in obedience to His Word by reading the Bible.

Our works cannot save us, but they can condemn us; it is not that we earn our way into everlasting life, but that we obey our Lord Jesus Christ:

Jesus says,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

"And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." (Hebrews 5:9)

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.'

Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'

And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'" (Revelation 21:1-8)
by Sarahmug (2023-03-24 03:44) 

Whether you believe in God or not, read this message!!!

Throughout time, we can see how we have been slowly conditioned to come to this point where we are on the verge of a cashless society. Did you know that Jesus foretold of this event almost 2,000 years ago?

In the last book of the Bible, Revelation 13:16-18, we will read,

"He (the false prophet who deceives many by his miracles--Revelation 19:20) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."

Referring to the last generation, this could only be speaking of a cashless society. Why so? Revelation 13:17 tells us that we cannot buy or sell unless we receive the mark of the beast. If physical money was still in use, we could buy or sell with one another without receiving the mark. This would contradict scripture that states we need the mark to buy or sell!

These verses could not be referring to something purely spiritual as scripture references two physical locations (our right hand or forehead) stating the mark will be on one "OR" the other. If this mark was purely spiritual, it would indicate both places, or one--not one OR the other!

This is where it really starts to come together. It is amazing how accurate the Bible is concerning the implantable RFID microchip. Here are notes from a man named Carl Sanders who worked with a team of engineers to help develop this RFID chip:

"Carl Sanders sat in seventeen New World Order meetings with heads-of-state officials such as Henry Kissinger and Bob Gates of the C.I.A. to discuss plans on how to bring about this one-world system. The government commissioned Carl Sanders to design a microchip for identifying and controlling the peoples of the world—a microchip that could be inserted under the skin with a hypodermic needle (a quick, convenient method that would be gradually accepted by society).

Carl Sanders, with a team of engineers behind him, with U.S. grant monies supplied by tax dollars, took on this project and designed a microchip that is powered by a lithium battery, rechargeable through the temperature changes in our skin. Without the knowledge of the Bible (Brother Sanders was not a Christian at the time), these engineers spent one-and-a-half-million dollars doing research on the best and most convenient place to have the microchip inserted.

Guess what? These researchers found that the forehead and the back of the hand (the two places the Bible says the mark will go) are not just the most convenient places, but are also the only viable places for rapid, consistent temperature changes in the skin to recharge the lithium battery. The microchip is approximately seven millimeters in length, .75 millimeters in diameter, about the size of a grain of rice. It is capable of storing pages upon pages of information about you. All your general history, work history, criminal record, health history, and financial data can be stored on this chip.

Brother Sanders believes that this microchip, which he regretfully helped design, is the “mark” spoken about in Revelation 13:16–18. The original Greek word for “mark” is “charagma,” which means a “scratch or etching.” It is also interesting to note that the number 666 is actually a word in the original Greek. The word is “chi xi stigma,” with the last part, “stigma,” also meaning “to stick or prick.” Carl believes this is referring to a hypodermic needle when they poke into the skin to inject the microchip."

Mr. Sanders asked a doctor what would happen if the lithium contained within the RFID microchip leaked into the body. The doctor replied by saying a terrible sore would appear in that location. This is what the book of Revelation says:

"And the first (angel) went, and poured out his vial on the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore on the men which had the mark of the beast, and on them which worshipped his image" (Revelation 16:2).

You can read more about it here--and to also understand the mystery behind the number 666: [url=https://2ruth.org]HTTPS://2RUTH.ORG[/url]

The third angel's warning in Revelation 14:9-11 states,

"Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.'"

Great hope is in our midst, and is coming in a mighty way--the greatest revival for Jesus in the history of the world where we will see the most souls come to Him of all tribes, tongues, nations, and peoples (Rev. 7:9-10); for we have this promise in God's Word in the midst of these dark times:

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years (not literal--rather a spiritual label for time spent in eternity); and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while (when the Antichrist and false prophet will rise up and God will test the world)." (Revelation 20:1-3)

"The coming of the lawless one (the Antichrist) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)"

Who is Barack Obama, and why is he still in the public scene?

So what's in the name? The meaning of someone's name can say a lot about a person. God throughout history has given names to people that have a specific meaning tied to their lives. How about the name Barack Obama? Let us take a look at what may be hiding beneath the surface.

Jesus states in Luke 10:18, "...I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

The Hebrew Strongs word (H1299) for "lightning": "bârâq" (baw-rawk)

In Isaiah chapter 14, verse 14, we read about Lucifer (Satan) saying in his heart:

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High."

In the verses in Isaiah that refer directly to Lucifer, several times it mentions him falling from the heights or the heavens. The Hebrew word for the heights or heavens used here is Hebrew Strongs 1116: "bamah"--Pronounced (bam-maw')

In Hebrew, the letter "Waw" or "Vav" is often transliterated as a "U" or "O," and it is primarily used as a conjunction to join concepts together. So to join in Hebrew poetry the concept of lightning (Baraq) and a high place like heaven or the heights of heaven (Bam-Maw), the letter "U" or "O" would be used. So, Baraq "O" Bam-Maw or Baraq "U" Bam-Maw in Hebrew poetry similar to the style written in Isaiah, would translate literally to "Lightning from the heights." The word "Satan" in Hebrew is a direct translation, therefore "Satan."

So when Jesus said to His disciples in Luke 10:18 that He saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven, if this were to be spoken by a Jewish Rabbi today influenced by the poetry in the book of Isaiah, he would say these words in Hebrew--the words of Jesus in Luke 10:18 as, and I saw Satan as Baraq O Bam-Maw.

The names of both of Obama's daughters are Malia and Natasha. If we write those names backward (the devil does things backwards) we would get "ailam ahsatan". Now if we remove the letters that spell "Alah" (Allah being the false god of Islam), we would get "I am Satan". Mere chance? I don't think so!

Obama's campaign logo when he ran as President of the US in 2008 was a sun over the horizon in the west, with the landscape as the flag of the United States. In Islam, they have their own messiah that they are waiting for called the 12th Imam, or the Mahdi (the Antichrist of the Bible), and one prophecy concerning this man's appearance is the sun rising in the west.

"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— saying with a loud voice, 'Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.'" (Revelation 14:6-7)

Why have the words of Jesus in His Gospel accounts regarding His death, burial, and resurrection, been translated into over 3,000 languages, and nothing comes close (the Quran about 110 languages)? Because the same Spirit of God (YHVH) who created all people likewise transcends all people; therefore the power of His Word is not limited by people; while all other religions are man-made, therefore they tend to primarily stay within their own culture. The same God who speaks to all people through His creation of the heavens and earth that draws all people around the world likewise has sent His Word to the ends of the earth so that we may come to personally know Him to be saved in spirit and in truth through His Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus stands alone among the other religions that say to rightly weigh the scales of good and evil and to make sure you have done more good than bad in this life. Is this how we conduct ourselves justly in a court of law? Bearing the image of God, is this how we project this image into reality?

Our good works cannot save us. If we step before a judge, being guilty of a crime, the judge will not judge us by the good we have done, but rather by the crimes we have committed. If we as fallen humanity, created in God's image, pose this type of justice, how much more a perfect, righteous, and Holy God?

God has brought down His moral laws through the 10 commandments given to Moses at Mt. Siani. These laws were not given so we may be justified, but rather that we may see the need for a savior. They are the mirror of God's character of what He has written in our hearts, with our conscious bearing witness that we know that it is wrong to steal, lie, dishonor our parents, murder, and so forth.

We can try and follow the moral laws of the 10 commandments, but we will never catch up to them to be justified before a Holy God. That same word of the law given to Moses became flesh about 2,000 years ago in the body of Jesus Christ. He came to be our justification by fulfilling the law, living a sinless perfect life that only God could fulfill.

The gap between us and the law can never be reconciled by our own merit, but the arm of Jesus is stretched out by the grace and mercy of God. And if we are to grab on, through faith in Him, He will pull us up being the one to justify us. As in the court of law, if someone steps in and pays our fine, even though we are guilty, the judge can do what is legal and just and let us go free. That is what Jesus did almost 2,000 years ago on the cross. It was a legal transaction being fulfilled in the spiritual realm by the shedding of His blood with His last word's on the cross crying out, "It is finished!" (John 19:30).

For God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). This is why in Isaiah chapter 53, where it speaks of the coming Messiah and His soul being a sacrifice for our sins, why it says it pleased God to crush His only begotten Son.

This is because the wrath that we deserve was justified by being poured out upon His Son. If that wrath was poured out on us, we would all perish to hell forever. God created a way of escape by pouring it out on His Son whose soul could not be left in Hades but was raised and seated at the right hand of God in power.

So now when we put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), where God no longer sees the person who deserves His wrath, but rather the glorious image of His perfect Son dwelling in us, justifying us as if we received the wrath we deserve, making a way of escape from the curse of death; now being conformed into the image of the heavenly man walking in a new nature, and no longer in the image of the fallen man Adam.

Now what we must do is repent and put our trust and faith in the savior, confessing and forsaking our sins, and to receive His Holy Spirit that we may be born again (for Jesus says we must be born again to see and enter the Kingdom of God in John chapter 3). This is not just head knowledge of believing in Jesus, but rather receiving His words, taking them to heart, so that we may truly be transformed into the image of God. Where we no longer live to practice sin, but rather turn from our sins and practice righteousness through faith in Him in obedience to His Word by reading the Bible.

Our works cannot save us, but they can condemn us; it is not that we earn our way into everlasting life, but that we obey our Lord Jesus Christ:

Jesus says,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

"And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." (Hebrews 5:9)

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.'

Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'

And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'" (Revelation 21:1-8)
by Sarahmug (2023-03-24 13:56)