The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed a new case of bird flu H5N1 in a 53-year-old woman from the jiangsu province of china (east), reported by the Chinese authorities to the agency on February 24.
The woman began to show symptoms at the end of January and was treated at a health center on February 4, she told the news agency EFE the organization, which noted that the woman had been exposed to poultry.
The genomic sequencing of the case shows that it is the variant 2.3.4.4bwhich currently circulates widely in birds.
The WHO highlights that since 2020 numerous cases of avian influenza have been detected in both domestic and wild birds (it is estimated that it has affected 200 million animals) and its jump to human beings can be expected at least in sporadic cases, among the fear of experts that variants with greater transmission will appear.
The case in China is confirmed days after a girl in Cambodia died of bird flu and the H5N1 virus that causes it was also detected in his father, who did not show serious symptoms.
In the Cambodian cases, the variant detected was 2.3.2.1c, older than the one analyzed in China.
With hundreds of millions of birds dead, the biggest global outbreak from the flu or avian influenza. It is an infection that mainly affects the birdsbut it can be transmitted to other species.
One of the foremost experts on influenza viruses in the WHO gave a warning to humanity. “We have to prepare in case the coronavirus bird flu spreads from Person to person”, said the English epidemiologist Richard Pebody, High-Risk Pathogen Surveillance Team Leader at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (WHO).
So far the virus can be transmitted from infected birds to humans in close contact. But it has not been efficient in the transmission between people. That does not mean that the situation cannot change. There’s a “potential risk to humans”.
One of the recommendations of the WHO expert to reduce the risk of an epidemic in humans was the following: “Citizens should be reminded that if they see dead or dying birds or other animals, do not catch them.”
Pebody’s second recommendation is that workers should avoid going to animal farms when they are sick with the common flu. This is how prevention will be done so that combine the seasonal flu virus with the avian flu virus if the animals were affected.
So far, the bird flu virus has infected only almost 900 people and it has killed more than half since 2003. The symptoms of bird flu in humans are fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches; pneumonia, among others.
(With information from EFE)
Keep reading:
What are the reasons for the avian flu outbreaks that are advancing in South America
They confirmed the first case of avian flu in poultry and the Government suspended exports
For the WHO, the risk of sustained transmission of avian influenza between humans is still low
Source-www.infobae.com