“Since the beginning of the year, at least forty cases of H5N1 flu have been reported in the United States. The majority of cases involved people who worked on dairy farms and were infected because the virus was present in milk Typically, these people developed conjunctivitis after getting milk splashed in their eyes, which is a bit worrying because these cases give the virus an opportunity to adapt to humans. On the other hand, both “new cases documented in Canada and the United States were not caused by cattle, but by the virus circulating in birds,” explains Steven Van Gucht, virologist and president of the Sciensano scientific committee. “For these two cases, we could not find the transmission chain. We therefore do not know how these two people were contaminated.he specifies.
Risk of mutation
The vagueness surrounding these two new contaminations worries scientists. They are particularly concerned that a variant transmissible from human to human could emerge. “At this point, we have not yet observed transmission of H5N1 between humans. The virus still has not adapted enough to humans to be capable of causing a human epidemic. But we must continue to monitor the situation closely. In Canada, tests will be carried out to check if family or other contacts have also been contaminated in order to exclude that there was contamination between humans. For the virus to be transmissible from human to human, the virus must mutate, which is why we must limit infections in the human population as much as possible because this increases the risk of this mutation occurring.indique Steven Van Gucht.
“This worries me a lot. If the virus develops the ability to transmit from human to human, it could be the start of a pandemic”
In this regard, the virologist is very critical of the management of the epidemic by the United States. “They didn’t take things seriously and because of that the transmission of the virus increased very sharply. Now they are much stricter, they test the milk a lot and there are restrictions on transport. I hope they will succeed in controlling this epidemic but I regret that it took more than six months when faced with the start of an epidemic there is a natural tendency to minimize the risks but the Covid crisis has taught us that. “we must act quickly to be able to keep the situation under control”recalls the scientist.
Strengthening security in Belgium
In Belgium, no outbreak of avian flu has yet been detected this year but the virus is circulating intensively along the migration routes to and through our country. Cases of bird flu have recently been detected in the Netherlands, Germany and France. This Saturday, Afsca therefore announced a strengthening of protection measures against the disease. Poultry and birds from professional breeding must now be entrusted. It is also prohibited to use untreated surface water or rainwater for poultry and birds.
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