An 80-year-old British citizen is the first European to contract H5N1 avian flu. The infection occurred at the end of December, but the case was only reported yesterday in “Eurosurveillance”, a magazine of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
"An outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in a flock of around 125 ducks in a home setting in South West England was confirmed by the UK Chief Veterinarian on 22 December 2021," the report reads.
Upon confirmation of the infection, the owner of the animals, an eighty-year-old who did not show any symptoms of infection but who had been highly exposed to contagion risk, was subjected to a swab to search for the avian influenza virus and put on preventive therapy. with an antiviral. The results, which arrived last January 5, confirmed the positivity to influenza A / H5N1. The elderly man was asymptomatic for the duration of the infection and did not transmit the virus to any of the 11 contacts monitored by the British health authorities. For the researchers, this case for the moment does not raise particular alarms.
"Virological investigations indicated low infectivity and the individual reported very limited contact with other people," they write. "The circumstances surrounding bird exposure were also unusual, with close contact with large numbers of infected birds and an enclosed home environment contaminated with the virus."
Investigations on the virus then showed that it had not been subject to mutations that accentuated its ability to be transmitted to humans. For the time being, the researchers conclude, "the risk to the general public of the avian influenza virus remains very low."
Avian influenza A / H5N1 rarely affects humans but has a lethality of more than 50%: since 2003, according to the WHO, 863 cases of human infections have been recorded in 18 countries, with 455 deaths.
(Unioneonline / vl)
