After coronavirus: also outbreak of highly contagious bird flu in China

After the coronavirus, an outbreak of a “highly contagious” form of bird flu has also been reported in China. This has been published by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. It is a strain of the H5N1 virus, which can also infect people.

Bird flu was diagnosed on a farm in Shaoyang, in the southern Hunan province. The company had 7,850 chickens, of which 4,500 died. In the meantime, the authorities had almost 20,000 poultry killed since the outbreak was established.

Contact

The fact that the strain is considered “highly contagious” refers in the first place to poultry. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus can be transmitted to humans, but it is not that easy.

Usually, human patients have come into contact with dead birds or an infected environment. There is no evidence that people can become infected if they cook the chicken meat they eat well (the virus is sensitive to heat).

Whoever catches the H5N1 virus does have a considerable risk of not surviving. According to the WHO, the mortality rate is 60 percent. Human-to-human infection is rare, but if it were to change, the impact on public health would be “serious”, according to the WHO.

Symptoms of H5N1 infection include high fever, muscle aches, nausea, cough, and sore throat. But abdominal pain, chest pain, and diarrhea also occur. The disease can get worse very quickly and cause breathing problems. Patients must go to the hospital as soon as possible, where they will receive an antiviral medicine.

New setback

The outbreak of bird flu in China is a new setback for the country, where in recent weeks, the coronavirus has been ugly in the northern province of Hubei. More than 20,000 infections have already been counted and more than 425 people have died.