Off The Record
Bird Flu Warning: Key Symptoms You Can’t Ignore As Experts Urge Public To Prepare
As bird flu spreads uncontrollably on American farms, leading US researchers have warned that America is on the verge of another epidemic.
Nearly 1,000 dairy cow herds have been impacted by the H5N1 outbreak in the states thus far, and over 70 human cases—including the first verified death—have been reported.
The two most recent individuals were infected in January 2022 and January of this year, making seven human cases of the H5N1 virus discovered in the UK since 2021.
Most recently, the first-ever case of avian flu in sheep was discovered on a Yorkshire farm, prompting alarm from UK specialists.
Experts in viruses cautioned about the “repeated spillover” of the potentially fatal infection into other mammals and highlighted the possibility of a pandemic.
The US poultry sector is currently at serious risk, according to a group of global experts from the Global Virus Network (GVN), which has urged for immediate action to comprehend and stop transmission in order to stop the spread of the virus to humans.
On Twitter, University of Missouri virologist Dr. Marc Johnson cautioned that the virus “is trying really hard” to “go pandemic.”
“It sure is getting a lot of opportunities,” he added.
And the GVN demanded more efforts to ‘inform the public’ about the dangers of avian flu.
The virus typically manifests similarly to the flu.
Coughing, sore throats, runny or stuffy noses, headaches, body pains, exhaustion, and shortness of breath or trouble breathing are examples of milder symptoms.
However, more serious symptoms have also been documented, such as fevers exceeding 37.7ºC (100ºF) and severe upper respiratory infections like pneumonia that necessitate hospitalization.
Similar to Covid, laboratory testing is required to diagnose a human bird flu virus infection based only on clinical signs and symptoms.
Swabs can be taken from the patient’s eye, nose, or throat to test for avian flu.
US health chiefs point out that taking a sample during the first few days of illness improves the accuracy of the test.
The diagnosis of bird flu virus infection in critically ill individuals might also result from the collection and examination of lower respiratory tract specimens.
However, it could be challenging to find the bird flu virus in a collection for certain patients who are completely healed or who are no longer critically ill.
The first bird flu death was recorded by US officials in January, involving a patient in Louisiana who had been admitted to the hospital due to severe respiratory symptoms.
According to reports, the patient was over 65, had preexisting health issues, and had come into contact with dead and ill birds from a backyard flock.
According to a genetic examination of the patient’s infection, the bird flu virus may have changed inside the patient’s body, perhaps leading to a more serious sickness.
It happened one month after California, in reaction to the outbreak among the state’s dairy cattle, declared a state of emergency due to avian flu.
Since its initial discovery in late August, the state’s agriculture department has found H5N1 in 645 dairy herds.
The fact that over half of the cases were documented in less than 30 days shows how quickly the virus spread.
California was not one of the first jurisdictions to identify H5N1 in dairy cattle, but since then, the outbreak has expanded dramatically.
A Canadian youngster who contracted the same kind of bird flu and was admitted to the hospital on November 8 after becoming ill on November 2 was the subject of another alarming instance.
The teen was still in the hospital as of the last report in late November, in a serious condition that required assistance breathing but was stable.
Since all of the canines and reptiles they had interacted with tested negative, it was unclear how they contracted the illness.
Although the H5N1 bird flu poses a pandemic risk, British specialists have previously informed MailOnline that the public is currently not in grave danger.
Professor Paul Hunter, a renowned infectious diseases expert from the University of East Anglia, said: “The concern is that should the virus evolve further to be better able to spread in humans then we would be at risk of another pandemic.”
“There is no evidence of that at present, but such a future shift cannot be excluded.”
Because bird flu is heat-sensitive and may be killed by properly preparing chicken, humans are unlikely to contract it from eating poultry or game birds.
Rather, the majority of human infections happen when the virus enters the body through the mouth, nose, eyes, or lungs.
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