TAG: GS 3: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
THE CONTEXT: Australia has reported its first confirmed human case of bird flu (avian influenza A (H5N1)).
EXPLANATION:
- The case involves a child who is believed to have contracted the virus while in India and was diagnosed in Victoria, according to a media report.
- This announcement marks a significant development in Australia’s public health landscape, especially since it coincides with a separate outbreak of a different avian influenza strain on a Victorian egg farm.
- This is the first case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in Australia.
- The last detection of bird flu in poultry in the country was in 2020, highlighting the relative rarity of such outbreaks.
- The current situation demonstrates the effectiveness of Victoria’s enhanced surveillance system in detecting novel or concerning flu virus strains promptly.
- The child, who returned to Australia from India in March 2024, experienced a severe infection but has since made a full recovery.
- The Victorian Department of Health confirmed the case and assured the public that there is no evidence of transmission within Victoria, noting that the avian influenza virus does not easily spread between people.
- Contact tracing efforts have not identified any further cases connected to this child.
The Victorian Department of Health provided several key points:
- The child had the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which is the first detected case of this strain in Australia.
- Enhanced surveillance systems in Victoria detected the virus through further testing of positive influenza samples.
- There is a very low chance of additional human cases since avian influenza typically requires direct contact with infected birds or their secretions for transmission.
- There is no evidence that the H5N1 strain can easily spread from human to human.
Concurrent Outbreak on a Victorian Farm
- On the same day the human case was reported, a bird flu outbreak was detected on a farm in Victoria.
- However, the strain identified on the farm was H7N7, not H5N1.
- This outbreak led to the euthanization of hundreds of thousands of chickens to prevent further spread. The farm, located near Meredith in the state’s west, is under quarantine.
Public Health Impact and Response
- The Victorian Department of Health emphasized that humans are not at risk from this virus unless they have had direct contact with infected birds, animals, or their secretions.
- Despite the severity of the infection in the child, the health officials reassured the public that the overall risk of human-to-human transmission remains very low.
Bird flu and H5N1:
- Bird flu, also known as avian flu, refers to an infectious viral illness that mainly infects and spreads among poultry and some wild birds.
- There are different strains of bird flu virus, which have been circulating for a very long time among at least 100 bird species, including wild waterfowl, such as ducks and geese, without much harming them.
- From time to time, a form of the flu virus jumps from wild birds to poultry farms, and replicates in cramped warehouses of farmed birds.
- It then quickly evolves into a highly pathogenic flu virus that causes a larger wave of illness and death than usual among birds.
- The currently circulating type of H5N1 is one such highly pathogenic flu virus.
- It has “descended from a virus that caused an outbreak on a goose farm in Guangdong, China, in 1996.
- That virus — one of a type of virus known as H5N1 — was highly pathogenic and killed more than 40 per cent of the farm birds it infected.
- The new version of H5N1 first emerged in Europe in 2020 and then rapidly reached Europe, Africa, and Asia.
- By late 2021, it had spread to North America and in the fall of 2022, it appeared in South America.
- In February 2024, the virus stormed through mainland Antarctica.