Overview
- The BMC Public Health study from Ashoka University used the BharatSim agent-based model of a 9,667-person community in India’s Namakkal poultry hub to test how H5 spillover could unfold.
- Researchers estimate tertiary spread can begin roughly 48 hours after a bird-to-human spillover achieves sustained transmission.
- Household isolation and quarantining worked only when triggered at extremely low counts, often as few as two confirmed human cases, with delays to about 10 cases resembling no intervention.
- Culling infected birds substantially reduced spillover risk when carried out within about 10 days of detecting outbreaks in poultry, whereas later action markedly increased human exposure.
- If infections reach tertiary contacts, the model suggests only broad measures such as lockdowns, compulsory masking, and large-scale vaccination are likely to restore control, a concern underscored by ongoing animal circulation and WHO’s 990 cases with 475 deaths to August 2025, even as the US reports few recent human cases and ended its CDC emergency response in July.