Bird Flu Outbreaks in Cattle Tripled in the United States
June 12, 2024 Hour: 11:53 am
So far, 92 cases in animals have been detected and confirmed in 12 states. Three of those cases have affected farm workers.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu in cattle in the United States have tripled in the last five weeks.
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So far, 92 cases in animals have been detected and confirmed in 12 states of that country. Three of those cases have affected farm workers.
In his weekly press conference, the WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also indicated about 500 people have remained under epidemiological surveillance during the last month.
“We recommend that anyone working with infected animals in any country use protective equipment while testing and monitoring of people exposed to the virus continues,” he said.
Despite the alert about the presence of avian flu in a domestic animal where it had not been found so far, the WHO director assured that H5N1 “has not shown signs of easy transmission between humans,” so the WHO continues considering H5N1 infections at a low-risk level for public health.
Since the first cases of bird flu in humans were recorded in 2003, at least 893 infections have been diagnosed in people, half of whom died. In 2024, only 11 cases of bird flu in humans have been confirmed in the United States, Cambodia, Australia, China and Vietnam.
A thorough and rapid investigation of any infection in humans “is essential to continue evaluating the virus and avoiding its possible transmission between people,” said Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who also called for an intensification of surveillance of outbreaks among animals to detect possible mutations of H5N1.
Sources: EFE – WHO
teleSUR/JF
