By EFE
May 28, 2024, 10:25 PM EDT
The United States Department of Agriculture confirmed this Tuesday the detection of “highly pathogenic avian influenza” H5N1 in several alpacas on a farm where there were infected poultry.
In a statement from the National Veterinary Services Laboratories, authorities reported that the animals that tested positive were on a farm in Idaho, where poultry had tested positive for the virus and were euthanized a few weeks ago.
The alpacas tested positive on May 16. This is the first time that this pathogen has been found in this species of camelid mammal native to South America.
The finding, they explain, “is not unexpected” due to the previous detection of the virus in the facilities and “the mixing of multiple species of livestock on the farm.”
The NVSL confirmed that the viral genome sequence found in these animals is the same sequence currently circulating in dairy cattle.
Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that they are preparing for the “possibility of an increased risk to human health” of bird flu infections, after two cases detected in people who were in contact with infected cows. .
Although the H5N1 virus currently circulating does not have the ability to spread easily between people, they explained, “it is possible that it could change” and could easily infect humans.
However, the federal health agency reiterated that the risk of bird flu in humans in the United States “is currently low” and there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission in the country.
The announcement of the recent contagion of dairy cows in the United States adds a worrying dimension to an outbreak that has affected millions of birds and marine mammals around the world.
The virus identified as H5N1 is a subtype of avian flu that is highly contagious among birds.
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