Avian influenza is one of the diseases that worries scientists and researchers the most because it kills thousands of birds and is particularly virulent to wild birds. Alert levels have been raised due to transmission of the virus to mammals, with the recent cat fatality being a notable example. poland and korea Because of this disease.
On a new episode of the Diario Veterinario podcast, veterinarians Fernando Zarate and Sergio Barbero review together Ursula Hofer, IREC (Film Resource Institute)-CSIC researcher, Global status of the disease. It is important to note that this podcast was recorded before bird flu was detected in domestic cats in Poland and South Korea.
First, the researchers point out that there is a seasonal variation in the virus, which leads to let’s get behind. “It’s a very dry, heat-drying virus. It’s a typical seasonal virus, associated with cold water, water with an acidic pH and low temperatures. However, things have changed. It persists much better at high temperatures, and there’s a lot we still don’t know, and we don’t even know why We have been spreading this virus since 2020“.
Given the contagion in mammals, Hofer noted that this could happen because “mammals that are dead or dying are usually mammals that have eaten infected animals, that is, that have been heavily exposed to the virus.” , and emphatically than virus “Can not afford to infect people“. However, the variability of the virus stands out, “What we know today may change tomorrow.”
Regarding the protections it recommends for staff exposed to the disease, they are “Hygiene, even masks. Ultimately they are aerosols, and minimizing the potential for inhalation minimizes the risk.”
Other issues addressed in the podcast are protocols for action when a case is detected in livestock, which is a “bridge species” and where the focus is,
Finally, the researchers noted that avian influenza “For scientists, it was a candidate for a pandemic, but the new coronavirus surpassed it”. He added that “by all factors, this virus has the greatest capacity”.
You can listen to the entire podcast on different platforms: Spotify, Apple, iVoox and SoundCloud.