H5N8 avian influenza: cases in humans in Russia

Russian authorities report that seven employees of a poultry farm in southern Russia contracted H5N8 avian flu. At the same time they point out that there is no evidence of transmission between humans for now, but only from poultry to humans. Cases have been described as "mild" according to Interfax – however in birds, symptoms can range from "asymptomatic and subclinical to highly lethal in some populations".

“Today, I want to inform you about an important scientific discovery made by scientists at the Vector science center,” said Anna Popova, head of the Russian consumer health control authority. "The first cases of human infection with [avian influenza A (H5N8)] have been confirmed in the laboratory."

"The virus can be transmitted from birds to humans, it has passed the interspecies barrier," he added. “To date, this variant of the flu virus is not passed from person to person. Only time will tell how quickly future mutations will make it possible to overcome this barrier as well ”. The danger is that, if ignored, the virus could mutate and become transmissible between humans, becoming yet another flu epidemic.

In chickens, typical symptoms of respiratory diseases include sneezing, coughing, difficulty breathing, and less egg production. H5N8, in particular, has a mortality rate of 75% in chickens, which is a very high value.

This makes it necessary to carefully follow the evolution of the epidemic in Russia.The latest avian flu, fortunately, did not have a particularly strong fallout in humans, even if politically it made itself felt on the current president Biden who, all era, was heavily criticized for an unsuccessful containment policy.

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The article H5N8 avian flu: cases in humans in Russia comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/influenza-aviaria-h5n8-casi-in-esseri-umani-in-russia/ on Sun, 21 Feb 2021 13:22:52 +0000.