Senasa confirmed three positive cases of bird flu in commercial farms

Despite the controls and precautions taken by the health authorities, Avian Flu This continues to be a concern, especially as new cases have been reported across the country. This was reported by the National Service for Health and Food Quality (Senasa), which confirmed three positive cases of bird flu (IA) H5, 2 in birds from commercial farms and 1 from backyards. They have been reported in the province of Buenos Aires, Neuquen there chacowith which there are 39 detections of the disease, so far, in Argentina.

As the health agency specifies in a press release, of the 5 samples analyzed by the National Laboratory of Senasa 2 had a negative diagnosis and 3 positive to AI H5. Of these, 2 were birds from commercial farms in establishments in Mar del Plata and Senillosa, Neuquén. The rest were barnyard animals in Avia Terai, Chaco.

Following the detection of the cases, and as a preventive measure, Senasa specified that the agents of the regional centers of Buenos Aires Sur; Northern Patagonia and Chaco-Formosa del Senasa, will carry out the corresponding sanitary actions in the properties concerned.

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At the same time, the agency is working on health and screening actions in all the regions where the findings have been made. At the same time, it continues the joint work carried out with the national Ministries of Health; Environment, the Secretariat of Agriculture, and Provincial Production, Health and Environment, municipalities and the private sector to prevent the disease from spreading to unaffected areas.

The agency has activated a special section on its official website, where you will find up-to-date health and regulatory information and dissemination materials for prevention, on avian influenza.

So far, cases have been confirmed in provinces such as Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Santa Fe, Jujuy, Neuquén, San Luis and Salta.

Avian influenza or influenza is an infectious disease that mainly affects birds and is caused by a virus from the Orthomyxoviridae family. Some avian influenza virus subtypes are highly pathogenic, primarily due to type A subtypes (H5 and H7), and cause severe disease in birds that can spread rapidly, resulting in high mortality rates .

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At the moment, the disease does not represent a fatal risk, even until now, transmission from animals to humans was very rare. In America, since last year, only 2 cases of people affected by bird flu have been reported, who had been in close contact with birds. One case was reported in the United States on April 29, 2022. The second case was detected in a girl in Ecuador on January 9. Although the risk of transmission is considered low, people considered exposed are those who have had direct contact without adequate protection with infected animals (alive or dead) or with their contaminated environment. Plucking, handling infected poultry carcasses and preparing poultry for consumption, particularly in a domestic setting, may also be risk factors.

In the same way, health organizations are asking to handle the situation responsibly since it is a disease that is spreading all over the world. An outbreak of bird flu with the H5N1 strain that began in 2020 has reached record levels, affecting millions of wild animals and poultry. In the United States alone, bird flu has affected nearly 60 million birds, including wild animals, commercial poultry and backyard flocks, as of January 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is on top of the 50 million birds destroyed in 36 European countries between October 2021 and September 2022. And it’s not just birds. In the UK, there have been 10 reports of infections in non-avian wildlife since the start of 2022, including red foxes, Eurasian otters and harbor seals.

As for the real problem of human contagion, there have been a total of 868 infections and 457 deaths from avian influenza in humans over the past 20 years. From 2020 to 2022, there have been only 9 confirmed human cases, including one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom, according to the WHO. There was also one in Ecuador and another in Cambodia this year. Most of the time, it was a person in direct contact with sick birds.

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