A rare human case of bird flu has been detected in a critically ill Victorian child as an unrelated outbreak of the disease at an egg farm forced authorities to euthanise hundreds of thousands of chickens.
“Fortunately, this virus, the avian influenza H5N1, is actually much much less transmissible than seasonal flu,” Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Dr Clare Looker said on ABC radio. “There’s a very few cases internationally of this being passed from human to human.”Authorities have been on alert for a particularly virulent strain of H5N1 ripping through wildlife populations on every continent except Australia.
The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain has killed millions of birds worldwide. The deadly virus has spread to mammals including seals in Antarctica.