UK health authorities say they’ve found a rare human case of avian flu in southwest England.
The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the person had been in regular close contact with “a large number of infected birds” in and around their home over a long time.
After contact tracing those who had been at the house, UKHSA said there was no evidence of onwards spread.
“The individual is currently well and self-isolating,” UKHSA said in a statement.
“The risk to the wider public from avian flu continues to be very low. However, people should not touch sick or dead birds.”
It said bird to human transmission of the bird flu was “very rare”. Because it required close contact with an infected bird.
Since the start of November, 60 confirmed cases of the H5N1 virus strain among animals had been reported in England — its largest-ever outbreak.
The person was identified as a case after authorities identified an outbreak of the strain of avian flu in their flock of birds.
“Their infection was identified through the routine monitoring which is conducted on anyone who has close contact with infected birds. The infected birds have all been culled,” UKHSA said.
“UKHSA swabbed this person and detected low levels of flu. Further laboratory analysis revealed that the virus was the ‘H5’ type, found in birds.”
It said that, at this point, it has not been possible to confirm the person had been infected with H5N1.
“This is the first human case of this strain in the UK, although there have been cases elsewhere globally.
“Based on the available evidence, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been notified.”
Professor Isabel Oliver, chief scientific officer at UKHSA, said while there was no evidence the strain could be spread from person to person, viruses evolved all the time.
“We continue to monitor the situation closely,” she said.
While the risk of avian flu to the general public is very low, we know that some strains do have the potential to spread to humans and that’s why we have robust systems in place to detect these early and take action.”
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