BIRD FLU - With the infection of a weasel by H5N1 of the bird flu in Germany, and several cases brought back by cats infected by the same virus in Germany and in Austria, is it necessary to fear even more H5N1 which touches certain mammals?

The infection of a new kind of mammal, the weasel, by the virus H5N1 of the bird flu was officially confirmed this week in Germany. This observation is the first infection researched by this kind by a virus of the bird flu. It had before been confirmed at domestic cats in Germany and in Austria.

This weasel was found living, but very ill, on March 2nd on the island of Rügen, in the Baltic Sea. It was euthanasiée. Tests performed in the German Institute of animal health Friedrich Loeffler confirmed the infection by the virus H5N1 of the bird flu.

Bird flu H5N1 infects a weasel after the cats

The ill weasel been discovered in the same very affected zone by the bird flu of the island of Rügen. It is in this zone where three domestic cats had been found died, near Schaprode. Tests performed in the Institute Friedrich Loeffler confirmed later that these three cats had been infected by the very pathogenic virus H5N1. The weasel is a nocturnal predator with the same food habits as with the domestic cat. They assume that following the example of the cats of Rügen, the weasel contracted the infection by feeding on a body of bird infected by H5N1.

Since February 16th, German authorities confirmed the infection to H5N1 on 125 swans, ducks, wild gooses and predatory birds on the island of Rügen, what points out important possibilities of exhibition of the small mammals which feed on bodies of birds. As for the man, the infection of other animal kinds than birds is a rare event. This day, alone the domestic fowl played a role proved to be in the transmission of the virus to the man.

In July, 2005, tests performed on three chives cabbage palms of Owston died in captivity in the Vietnam allowed to disclose an infection in the virus H5N1 of the bird flu, what marked the first case known by infection in this rare kind. The big feline, notably the tigers and panthères, kept in captivity and nourished on carcasses of chickens, were also infected and developed in serious forms of illness. They also know that ferrets and other kinds of mammals are sensitive to this illness.

For the WHO, it will be necessary to make new studies to know if the pollution of a new kind of mammal by the virus H5N1 has an impact on risk as the man to contract the infection or on the potential of adaptation of the virus to mammals, of which the man. In effect, Mr for the Institute Pastor, « the spread of the infection to birds augments the likelihood of the appearance of a new influenzal virus in the human population. As all influenzal viruses of type A, the subcategory H5N1 has a big capacity to be transferred in the course of time, but also to exchange its genes with influenzal viruses belonging to other infectious subcategories of other kinds », nothing is less sure since it is other animal kinds which meet holders of the virus H5N1 of the bird flu.

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