The Trump administration has been criticised for losing control of a bird flu outbreak that has spread among mink and cattle farms across the United States.

The H5N1 virus has infected around 1,000 people since it was first detected in the late 1990s, killing roughly half of them. While it currently does not spread among humans, scientists have long worried that it could trigger a pandemic, and that each human infection raises the risk of the virus mutating.

A new variant emerged in 2020 and has since spread to millions of birds and hundreds of animal species across the globe, leading to devastating losses in both wildlife and farmed livestock and poultry.

While some countries have introduced tough measures to curb its spread, including mandatory culls of infected animals, “flockdowns” (where birds are kept indoors) and vaccination of farm workers who handle at-risk livestock, experts say the US is allowing the virus to run rampant.

For more than two months, an outbreak has raged unchecked on a Utah farm…