The news that the bird flu virus was detected for the first time in a pig in the United States caused concern. The results of the samples also taken from the other animals in the household are particularly important.
Lab results from two more tested pigs are awaited PHOTO: Pixabay
A pig has been infected with the bird flu virus in the state of Oregon (northwest), which is a first in the United States, the authorities announced on Wednesday, October 30, 2024. It is about one pig out of the five pigs on the farm, the analyzes show that the animal was infected with the H5N1 virus, the bird flu virus. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) stated that there was no concern about the pork supply situation and that no meat from the farm was intended for sale.
However, the fear is that the increasing number of infected mammals could facilitate the mutation of the virus so that it can also be transmitted from human to human. The USDA said, however, that genomic sequencing of the virus from infected poultry showed no changes in the virus that would suggest it has become more transmissible between humans.
“The problem is if this virus is transmitted from one animal to another”
Among the flu viruses, there is already the swine flu virus that commonly circulates in pigs and also passes to humans (H1N1, H1N2, H3N2) and is transmitted from human to human. In the case of the bird flu virus, now detected for the first time in pigs, things are different. This mutation allowing the passage from the infected animal via a bird to another animal does not exist. This is what the specialists hope to find out from the results that are still awaited, namely that the bird flu virus has not acquired the mutation that allows it to pass from pig to pig.
“This is a bird flu virus that was found in a pig. The problem arises in a way somewhat similar to how it would arise if it were a case of the bird flu virus found in a human. If this virus is transmitted from one animal to another, then it can really be a problem, because first of all there could be a spread of the virus in pigs and then, of course, if it’s farmed pigs , of the transmission of the virus to humans. The same thing happens with bird flu that passes to humans. The variant of the bird flu virus that has the mutations that generate the possibility for the virus to be transmitted from human to human has not yet been identified.” explained Dr. Emilian Popovici, vice-president of the Romanian Society of Epidemiology.
At present, says the doctor, the bird flu virus occasionally infects humans and, as far as we can see, pigs, without being able to specify a possibility of transmission of the virus from human to human or from animal to animal. “For now, the risk is what it was before this case was found in that pig in the United States,” says the doctor.
“At that point it could become a problem for pig farms”
As two of the pigs were determined not to be infected with the avian flu virus, the results of the other two out of the total five in the outbreak are now awaited in order to draw conclusions.
“It’s not sensational, in my opinion. It is an infected pig, as were also infected people cu bird flu virus, without the bird flu virus being transmitted from person to person. I thank God, because if it were transmitted it would not be good at all. And surely it would not be good even if it were transmitted from one pig to another pig. At that moment it could become a problem for pig farms, in the idea that the virus would also pass to the animals in the farms, it would mean decimation of herds. (…) It is an avian virus that passed to pigs, and here it remains to be determined whether it has the ability to be transmitted from pig to pig, just as the variant with humans is determined, this is also observed, if the virus acquires the mutations necessary to be transmitted from person to person. So far he hasn’t acquired those mutations, we hope he never will, if possible.” concluded epidemiologist Emilian Popovici.
