The current outbreak of bird flu is already reaching status of panzooticsa concept analogous to that of a pandemic (which is so sadly familiar to us) in the animal kingdom.
Of course, this assumes a huge economic risk, with poultry farms in large countries severely affected. But the disease can also affect humans, making it a public health problem as well.
What is (exactly) bird flu?
The first thing to keep in mind is that there is no single strain of bird flu that infects humans, but more than a dozen have been identified to date. They all belong to the type of influenza A, which causes among others the common flu in people and the swine flu. The second thing is that, in all cases, although transmission to humans can occur and has been documented in several, it is a relatively rare phenomenon.
In the case of the current outbreaks, the responsible viral clade is H5N1, and they have already been found some jumps to humansalthough among these it does not seem to have (for the moment) an excessively alarming transmissibility.
What are your symptoms?
Of course, once it jumps to our species it is a very virulent and lethal disease: it ends up with the life of up to 53% of their victims of our species, according to the data available since 2003 exposed in this medium by the professor of microbiology at the University of Salamanca Raúl Rivas.
As this expert explains, the main symptoms in humans, which appear between 2 and 8 days after infection, are fever over 38 degrees, muscle pain, respiratory distress, cough and malaise. Most patients present a significant decrease in lymphocytes and alterations in liver enzymes.
How is it treated?
The approach to treating the disease in humans consists mainly of the administration of certain antiviral drugs such as oseltamivir, zanamivir, peramivir and baloxavir.