>> Avian flu: first case detected in a child in the United States
>> Avian flu: WHO calls for strengthening surveillance
| The patient, currently hospitalized in Louisiana, is believed to have contracted the avian flu virus after being exposed to sick and dead birds. |
| Photo : AFP/VNA/CVN |
The patient, hospitalized in Louisiana (South), is number 61e human case of avian flu detected since April in the country, specify the American Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) in a press release.
Aged over 65 and suffering from other pathologies, he is in “a critical condition” et “suffers from a severe respiratory illness”Louisiana health authorities detailed to AFP.
The other infected people had mild symptoms.
For several months, the United States has been facing an epizootic – the equivalent of an epidemic in animals – of avian flu.
Several elements suggest that “bird flu is knocking on our door and could trigger a new pandemic”, Meg Schaeffer, epidemiologist at the American SAS institute, recently told AFP.
The American health authorities, however, assured Wednesday December 18 that their assessment of the risk presented by avian flu for public health was not changing and remained “weak”.
“No spread of bird flu (of subtype) H5 from person to person was not detected”they indicated.
Other serious cases of avian flu in humans have already been detected in other countries, they recall. This was particularly the case of a teenager hospitalized in November in the Canadian province of British Columbia (West).
Mutation you virus
The Louisiana patient had contact with sick and dead birds in a barnyard, the CDC said.
Genomic sequencing showed that the H5N1 virus that infected him was the same type that infected people in the US state of Washington and neighboring Canada, as well as wild birds and poultry in the United States.
This version of H5N1 is different from that detected in cattle as well as in mild human cases and some other poultry.
The avian flu virus is circulating in the United States in poultry farms and has been spreading in unprecedented ways since March in cow herds.
In late October, a pig on an Oregon farm that also housed poultry and livestock tested positive for H5N1, although it did not show signs of illness.
This growing number of mammals infected with the disease worries experts who fear that high circulation could facilitate a mutation of the virus which would allow it to pass from one human to another.
Contact with animals
The recent detection of avian flu in people with no known contact with an infected animal reinforces concerns in this regard.
At least three people have been infected in recent months with the H5N1 virus in the United States without knowing the origin of their contamination: a child in California, an adult in Missouri and probably another individual in Delaware, the CDC said on Wednesday, December 18.
While traces of the virus have been detected in raw or unpasteurized milk, the US Department of Agriculture announced on Wednesday December 18 a new plan aimed at strengthening surveillance in this area.
AFP/VNA/CVN
