Australia reported its first case of H5N1 bird flu in a human being on Wednesday. “This is the first confirmed human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Australia,” Dr. Claire Looker, the state’s chief health officer, said in a statement.
Health authorities in Australia’s southeastern state of Victoria said contact tracing had not identified any further cases and there was a very low chance of others becoming infected as the flu does not easily spread between people/
This was the first instance of detection of the H5N1 strain in a person or animal in the country, she added. One person in the United States, a Texas dairy worker, was also said to have been infected with the bird flu after handling cattle.
One Person In Texas Has Been Infected With Bird Flu After Handling Cattle
As more reports of people getting sick surface, the chances of this virus mutating to easily infect humans and spread from person to person increase.
Australia is the only continent where animals have so far stayed free of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, but authorities on Wednesday said a different strain of highly pathogenic bird flu had been detected at an egg farm near Melbourne.
According to a report by Reuters, the initial laboratory tests showed that the virus was an as yet unidentified H7 strain that probably came from the wild bird population and had been seen in Australia before, said Graeme Cooke, Victoria’s chief veterinary officer. It was not a mutation of the H5 strain that infected the man in Texas.
Could this be the first sign that bird flu is going to become the next human plandemic?
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“At this stage, we can’t say whether there’ll be any onward spread to other properties. We are now taking measures necessary to stamp it out to remove any onward spread,” Cooke said.
The outbreak presented no risk to human health, he added.
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