Bird flu, Andreoni: “If it passes to humans, high lethality”

“Controlling the circulation of avian strains in animals is critical, because these strains have occasionally been transmitted to humans and have extremely high lethality.” Thus to Adnkronos Salute Massimo Andreoni, head of Infectious Diseases at the Tor Vergata Polyclinic in Rome and scientific director of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit), after the isolation of a case of avian flu in a non-commercial poultry farm in the locality Ostia Antica. “H5N1, for example, has a lethality that reaches 50% in humans, H7N9 at 30% – explains Andreoni – Luckily up to now there have never been human-to-human transitions, the virus has always transmitted to people by direct contact with the sick animal. Since they are extremely lethal pathogens for humans, obviously everything must be done to prevent this further acquisition by the virus, that is, this capacity for transmission from man to man ” . The expert highlights the importance of monitoring the circulation of these viruses among birds, as evidenced also by the isolation of the case in a non-commercial poultry farm in Ostia Antica, in Lazio, thanks to the regular checks that are triggered at the onset. of an abnormal mortality. “We have already had the circulation of avian strains among birds in recent years, which has also created epidemics among these animals. Exceptionally, most of the time in Southeast Asia, we have also had human cases of avian. In these areas there have been even small outbreaks but they have always had limited numbers, since there is no passage from human to human in fact the risk is reduced in transmission. In any case, there have been several hundred human infections all over the world “in several years,” not few if we look at them as a whole. The epidemiological investigations that are normally carried out on birds found dead and on wild and farmed birds are essential, because they allow to control the circulation of these viruses among the avian population and promptly alert on any cases that may occur in the human beings “, underlines Andreoni. The frequency with which outbreaks are intercepted among the birds in our country and n Europe “at the moment does not seem to have intensified compared to the past”, concludes the expert. But certainly if these phenomena were to become less sporadic it would be “something worrying that must be kept under control. When these viruses enter the farms it always becomes an extremely serious problem. There are poultry farms that have been completely wiped out by the arrival of the ‘bird flu”. It must be “a phenomenon of careful observation and it is necessary to intervene immediately to block the epidemic itself among the birds and to avoid the passage to humans. This adaptation of the virus can always take place, in the mutations it makes it could also acquire this characteristic of transmissibility from man to man. Although fortunately it has never happened so far. All we need is avian at this moment “, says the expert.