A highly pathogenic
avian influenza virus appears to be spreading throughout Gyeonggi Province, South
Korea’s largest poultry production base and most populated province, putting
authorities on alert. This virus appears
to have surfaced in mid-November amongst a local poultry production farm and
has been spread to over three other poultry farms in a period of weeks. This has led to the controlled slaughter of
nearly 100,000 chickens and ducks that were suspected to be either infected or
exposed to the highly virulent virus. The
Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that more cases are being
examined as wild bird infections were reported around the western coastal
areas. Authorities see migratory birds as the source of the
H5N6 virus outbreak in this case, as there have been no reports of infections
through the movement of people or livestock. This is the
first time that South Korea has reported an outbreak of the H5N6-strain bird
flu, making this virus an emerging virus. While in
neighboring China, there have been 16 cases of human infections of H5N6 since
2014. Ten of those infected died.
This situation is very
worrisome for numerous reasons especially the rate and method at which the
virus appears to be spreading, the potential for cross infectivity, and the
virulence rate of the virus. It is known
that influenza was primarily an avian-based virus many years ago, however
influenza now seems to be amongst one of the most infectious human viruses, so
this indicates its ability to cross into the human species with ease especially
in areas such as this were the population density and conditions promote its
spread. If and potentially when H5N6
begins to infect humans in South Korea, its past virulence rates are rather
alarming seeing as it had killed more than half of those it infected, posing a
major threat to the local and potentially global populations.
-Ethan Wentworth
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