Israeli doctors fear that a deadly bird flu virus may infect people during a severe outbreak.
As the bird flu epidemic has spread to new areas, Israel faces difficulties in containing it. Now, Israeli health officials are warning that the virus might infect humans – without even mutating.
“The widespread nature of the avian flu is very concerning, especially given that it is infecting chickens and not just wild birds,” the head of Israel’s National Council for Community Health, professor Amnon Lahad, told the Times of Israel on Wednesday. Professor Amnon Lahad warned the Times of Israel that the virus was already affecting his patients. “the move from wildlife to stock animals,”He said that he hoped it wouldn’t take the next step. “to humans.”
This grim warning was issued just a few days before the virus spread to an Israeli farm infected with 5,500 birds. The Agriculture Ministry placed the facility under lockdown and suspended its egg sales.
The outbreak started around two months ago, when the first signs of the disease were noted at various farms in Israel’s north.
The Hula Nature Reserve was also affected by the impact. There, thousands of cranes died and wild birds were killed in the incident, which Tamar Zandberg (minister of environment protection) described as “a devastating event.” “one of the worst blows to wildlife in Israel’s history.”
The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has been identified. It can infect both humans and birds. With a death rate exceeding 50%, 600,000. Israeli domestic fowl have died from the illness or were culled.
“We’re managing a complex and evolving situation that requires many responses,”Oded Forer, Agriculture Minister, said Thursday. “I have instructed our professional teams to continue taking action by all available means.”It also stated that the ministry was worried about possible human infections and that its veterinarians were working to prevent this from happening. “according to emergency procedures.”
Lahad says that although the virus may be transmitted to humans by mutations, it also has the potential to do this without one. It could be “transmitted through contact with sick birds,” he said, adding that it might occur through “the same method we know from Covid, namely droplets passing into the respiratory system.”
No cases of human infection from H5N1 have been reported by Israel to date.
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