It’s not just hunters, poultry farmers and dairy farmers who need to be wary of the current avian flu outbreak hitting the United States.
City dwellers, especially those with pets, should also be careful, scientists say.
A community science project, called New York City Virus Hunters (NYCVH), has published research showing that a small number of birds flying into the Big Apple in recent years have been infected with a highly contagious strain of avian flu.
Between 2022 and 2023, volunteers collected 1,927 samples of bird droppings from various urban parks and green spaces scattered around the city, as well as a few samples from animal rehabilitation centers.
In total, samples from six birds tested positive for the virus, including a red-tailed hawk, three Canada geese, a peregrine falcon and a chicken.
Although the presence of avian flu in New York poses a low risk to humans and animals living there, it is not a zero-risk situation.
“It’s smart to remain vigilant and stay away from wildlife,” says Christine Marizzi, a microbiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “This also includes preventing your pets from coming into close contact with wildlife.”
New York City is in the path of many migratory wild birds and, as Marizzi and his co-authors of the NYCVH study explain: “This puts them in contact with a very dense population of humans and birds. pets, thus providing a vast urban animal-human network. interface in which the general public may have little awareness of circulating infectious diseases.
Although the findings suggest that the latest highly pathogenic strains of avian flu have been present in New York for at least two years now, no human cases have been reported, meaning a contagion event is likely rare.
That said, in Texas, a farm worker recently fell ill with bird flu after likely contracting it from a sick cow. This unique case is perhaps the first case of transmission of avian influenza between mammals and humans.
The World Health Organization has recorded only a small number of humans contracting bird flu worldwide since the current outbreak began in 2020, and only this case in Texas is linked to a mammal.
Still, WHO officials take the potential threat of the virus spreading among mammals very seriously, because the H5N1 virus can be very deadly if it infects humans.
In the United States alone, the avian flu epidemic has already moved from migratory birds to wild foxes, raccoons, opossums, skunks, seals, leopards, bears, mountain lions and bobcats. Domestic cats and dogs also became ill. Even cattle and goats.
Some at the WHO describe the current outbreak of avian flu as “a global zoonotic animal pandemic.”
Earlier this year, a dozen cats on a dairy farm died after drinking cow’s milk contaminated with bird flu.
“Birds are key to finding out which flu viruses and other avian viruses are circulating in the New York area, as well as understanding which ones may be dangerous to other birds and humans,” says Marizzi.
“And we need more attention on the ground – that’s why community participation is really essential.”
The study was published in the Journal of Virology.
News Source : www.sciencealert.com
Gn Health
