A new kind of bird flu detected in European poultry farms will surely spread among birds and may infect a few people, though the virus is highly unlikely to spread in the human population, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday, urging countries to be “vigilant.”
The H5N8 form of the virus has hit a Dutch chicken farm and a German turkey farm and is suspected as the strain that infected ducks on a British farm. The U.N. health agency said the virus mostly likely had moved from Asia to Europe with migratory wild birds.
“We should all be quite vigilant,” Elizabeth Mumford, a scientist with the WHO influenza program, told reporters in Geneva. Responding to questions, she said she “absolutely” expected more bird flocks to become infected.
The WHO expert emphasized the importance of culling sick birds and monitoring fever in humans who have been in contact with sick birds to ensure any possible human infections are detected.
H5N8 bird flu has never been known to infect humans before, and many experts in influenza virology say the risk to people from this subtype is minimal, though Mumford said there was a possibility of “a few sporadic cases.”
H1 and H3 bird-flu subtypes tend to be more transmissible to humans but cause less severe illness, the WHO expert said.