(ORDO NEWS) — The simultaneous death of more than 600 fur seals in Peru from bird flu has again raised the question of how the virus of this dangerous disease is spread.
“If only a few seals that hunted sick birds became infected and died, there would be nothing strange,” the Argentine biologist Sergio Lambertucci quotes the publication.
“But all 600 dead seals could not have become infected from birds?”
“It is more likely that among fur seals [the virus] was transmitted directly,” Dutch epidemiologist Thijs Kuijken confirmed the hypothesis.
An event confirming this assumption occurred on January 27 off the coast of one of the Peruvian islands, where about a hundred more fur seals were found, also killed by bird flu.
Pending a final decision on the issue, the Peruvian government urged citizens not to approach wild animals, as such contact could lead to the transmission of the virus to humans.
Avian influenza is an acute infectious viral disease that affects the digestive and respiratory organs in birds and leads to the death of birds. Carriers are usually wild individuals.
Europe is experiencing the most devastating bird flu epidemic ever, with more than 50 million poultry slaughtered in a year.
In early February, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said.
That the recent sharp increase in the spread of H5N1 avian influenza in mammals requires careful monitoring, but the risk to humans is considered to be low.
At the same time, scientists fear that there will be mutations in the virus that can cause a pandemic in humans.
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