(123rf)
Four days after 2 cats were validated to have actually been contaminated with bird influenza (AI) at an animal shelter in Seoul, 3 more presumed AI cases in cats were reported in the city on Saturday.
The 3 presumed cases of H5N1 infection infections were discovered at a cat shelter in Gwanak-gu, Seoul, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said, including that it will take 2 or 3 days to discover if the infections were extremely pathogenic, leading to extreme morbidity and death.
Earlier recently, 2 cats at a shelter in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, were validated to have actually been contaminated with an extremely pathogenic AI stress, marking the very first infections of the infection in mammals in 7 years in South Korea.
The shelter had actually reported a strange case of en masse cat deaths, with 38 of the cats under its care dead because late last month.
As the ministry right away shared the circumstance with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, city governments and associated companies, the shelter has actually been decontaminated and deflected limitations.
The illness control company and the regional administration are checking out those who had contact with the cats and might have AI.
So far, no individual who has actually touched with the cats has actually revealed signs, the authorities said.
As in the validated cases in Yongsan-gu recently, those classified as “high-risk,” who have actually been exposed to presumed cases of AI in cats, will be carefully kept track of for 10 days from the last day of contact.
Only one such individual is presently being kept track of and has actually disappointed any signs yet.
Avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has actually spread throughout Europe in recent years, leading to a cull in May and June of millions of birds on French farms alone and affecting the supply of poultry meat and eggs, according to Reuters.
“There is a recent paradigm change in the ecology and epidemiology of avian influenza which has heightened global concern as the disease spread to new geographical regions and caused unusual wild bird die-offs, and an alarming rise in mammalian cases,” said Dr. Gregorio Torres, head of the Science Department at the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).
In Poland last month, more than two dozen cats were infected with bird influenza, although no individuals appeared to have actually gotten ill with the infection, according to the World Health Organization.
Four human cases of bird influenza A (H5N1) were likewise validated in Cambodia, China and Chile, the WHO said.
By Kim So-hyun ([email protected])
