Bird flu in the Czech Republic, potentially threatened by transmission to humans!

According to the spokesperson of the regional hygienists Dana Šalamunová, people who were in direct contact with the infected animals will be ordered to receive medical supervision. They do not have to go to quarantine because there has been no case of human-to-human transmission, she added. The source of the infection was probably wild waterfowl. “This is a subtype of H5N1, which, unlike H5N8, can be potentially transmissible to humans. We passed this information to the regional hygienic station,” said Majer. According to Solomon, hygienists find out who came into direct contact with the animals. “We will then order so-called medical supervision for these people, which means that the general practitioner will be informed, they will be observed, and if their health changes or any problems occur, they will immediately contact the general practitioner,” Šalamunová told ČTK.

The breeder reported the death of five geese. There were also 16 hens and 11 ducks in small-scale breeding. The remaining poultry was killed by veterinarians. In the vicinity of the outbreak, they have declared a protection and surveillance zone, where the conditions are stricter, for example, for the movement of poultry. Avian influenza, known as avian influenza since the 19th century, is caused by influenza A viruses. A particularly dangerous subtype of the virus, called H5N1, was first reported in Scotland in 1951. Human influenza was first diagnosed in humans in Hong Kong in 1997. The virus reappeared in South Korea in December 2003. In the Czech Republic, the first case of the H5N1 bird flu virus appeared in 2006 in a swan found near Hluboká nad Vltavou, and in June 2007 it was also proven in turkey breeding in the Orlické Ústí region. The H5N1 virus first began decimating poultry in Asia in 2003, from where the infection spread to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. However, another subtype, H5N8, caused greater difficulties for poultry farmers in the Czech Republic in 2007 and 2017. However, transmission to humans has not yet been recorded. In the Czech Republic, 39 outbreaks of bird flu have already been declared this year and about a quarter of a million birds have been killed, the disease has significantly affected the breeding of Perena ducks. According to the Agrarian Chamber of the Czech Republic, this may mean outages on the duck market. Chicken meat and eggs are not yet affected by outages.