Now Britain gets hit by BIRD FLU: Health chiefs detect strain in person in South West England

A case of avian influenza in a person has been found in the South West of England, health officials have said.  

While officials have not released details on the individual infected the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the person caught the virus from close and regular contact with a large number of infected birds, which they kept in and around their home.

The infected person is reportedly well and is currently self-isolating. While bird to human transmission of avian influenza is rare, it can be deadly, with fatality tares estimated to be around 50 per cent. 

Subsequent human-to-human transmission of avian influenza is also rare and the risk to public health is deemed to be extremely low. However, officials said people should not touch sick or dead birds.

UKHSA said all close personal contacts of the individual, including persons who  visited the premises, have been traced and there is ‘no evidence’ of the infection having spread to anyone else. 

Avian influenza, sometimes called bird flu, is a virus that spreads among bird species with the current outbreak being fuelled by the H5N1 strain.

If the infected person is confirmed to have H5N1 it would be the first ever recorded incidence of this strain of bird flu infecting a person in the UK.

The current bird flu outbreak is the largest ever recorded in Britain – with officials saying more than half a million poultry have had to be culled as part of efforts to control the virus.

Dead turkeys are loaded onto a JCB at Redgrave Park Farm, in Redgrave, Suffolk following an outbreak of bird flu at the turkey farm.

The case was detected by the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency, which routinely monitors anyone who has been in contact with infected birds. 

The infected birds the person had contact wit have now been culled, health authorities confirmed. 

UKHSA analysis of samples taken from the infected individual revealed that the virus is of the H5 ‘type’ but officials said it is currently impossible confirmed it as being the H5N1 strain.  

UKHSA chief scientific officer Professor Isabel Oliver, said: ‘While the risk of avian flu to the general public is very low, we know that some strains do have the potential to spread to humans and that’s why we have robust systems in place to detect these early and take action.

‘Currently there is no evidence that this strain detected in the UK can spread from person to person, but we know that viruses evolve all the time and we continue to monitor the situation closely.’ 

The World Health Organization has been notified about the UK’s human case of bird flu.  

The last recorded case of bird was in 2006 but this was for the H7 version of the virus. In total there have been less than five cases of bird flu in humans recorded in Britain according to UKHSA. 

Reacting to the news Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, said there was no cause for public alarm about the human transmission and that poultry products, such as eggs, remained safe.

‘Transfer of avian flu to people is rare as it requires direct contact between an infected, usually dead, bird and the individual concerned,’ he said. 

‘It is a risk for the handlers who are charged with the disposal of carcasses after an outbreak but the virus does not spread generally and poses little threat. It does not behave like the seasonal flu we are used to.

‘Despite the current heightened concern around viruses there is no risk to chicken meat or eggs and no need for public alarm.’   

Professor Mike Tildesley, an expert in infectious disease modelling at the University of Warwick, added: ‘This is clearly going to be big news but the key thing is that human infections with H5N1 are really rare and they almost always occur as a result of direct, long term contact with poultry. 

‘There has never been any evidence of sustained human to human transmission of H5N1 so at present I wouldn’t consider this to be a significant public health risk.’