2023-05-16 19:41:00
Should we be worried about it? The bird flu virus has been detected in England in two poultry workers, who were taking part in a screening programme, the British Health Security Agency announced on Tuesday. These two people had recently worked in an infected poultry farm, the agency said. They were both “asymptomatic” and “have since tested negative”.
Have they been infected by the influenza A (H5) virus, detected on them? Hard to say at the moment. In asymptomatic people, it can indeed be “difficult to distinguish” a real infection from a simple “contamination of the nose or throat”, resulting from inhalation of contaminated materials and which may be the cause of the positive test. , the agency said in a statement.
Search for contact cases
It is “probable” that the first individual is in this second case. But the situation of the second is “more difficult” to determine, indicates the agency, which specifies that “an in-depth investigation is in progress”. In the meantime, “a search for contact cases has been carried out for this individual”. However, the agency specifies that no proof of human-to-human transmission has been provided, and that the health risk “remains very low for the general population”.
“Globally, there is no evidence of this strain spreading from person to person, but we know that viruses are constantly changing and we remain vigilant,” said Professor Susan Hopkins, medical adviser. chief at the British Health Security Agency, cited in the press release.
A screening campaign has been launched in the United Kingdom among asymptomatic people who have been in contact with farms contaminated with avian flu. These people are invited to take swabs from the nose and throat during the ten days following their exposure, and, in some cases, blood tests may also be carried out to “detect antibodies, suggesting an immune response”, details the agency.
Around the world, fears have emerged in recent weeks about avian flu due to the H1N5 virus, which is ravaging wild birds and has already infected mammals and even a few rare humans. This virus “particularly worries us with a very high lethality rate (around 50%)” during past episodes, told us Arnaud Fontanet, head of the team devoted to the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the Institut Pasteur.
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