Alan Gosling said his Muscovy ducks were ‘like family’ (Photo: SWNS)
The first British person to be infected with a deadly strain of bird flu says they are heartbroken following their 20 live ducks were slaughtered on New Years Day.
Alan Gosling, a 79-year-old grandfather living in Devon, caught the virus following an infection broke out among 160 Muscovy ducks at his home in Buckfastleigh.
Although he feels physically “good”, he finds it difficult to come to terms with the fate of his herd, which he has described as “like family”.
All the animals, including 20 that lived in his house, had to be slaughtered.
Mr Gosling said: “I’ve been with them for over 20 years so it’s a huge loss. ”
“They were my family – they were my life.
“People don’t realize that they are smart, but also so nice.
“They used to sit on my slippers to warm them up before I put them on.
The retired railway worker is the first ever human case of H5N1 recorded in the UK (Photo: Gosling family / SWNS)
“Or I would go downstairs for a cup of tea and a cookie – he would sit with them and give them some cookie as well.”
“The house was never empty and I was never alone. Now it’s like a morgue.
The retired railway worker is the first ever human case of H5N1 recorded in the UK.
Around 1,000 people have already been diagnosed with the strain worldwide since its onset in the late 1990s, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
The authorities stressed that transmission from birds to humans is rare and that there is no risk to the general public.
Mr. Gosling, who is self-isolating at home, says he is “happy” to be able to help the scientists who have taken “sample following sample”.
But he called the culling of his ducks a “top way”.
Two of Alan Gosling’s pet ducks that had to be slaughtered following the bird flu outbreak (Photo: Gosling family / SWNS)
He said: “I think not taking care of wildlife is one of the biggest problems today and I’ve always done my best to take care of wildlife.
“What happened to the ducks was far exaggerated – I know they would have known what was going on. “
The close personal contacts of the father of three, including anyone who visited his home, have all been traced and there is “no evidence” that the infection has spread to anyone else, said UK Health Safety Agency.
Mr Gosling’s daughter-in-law, Ellesha, 26, and her husband Richard, 47, have not been able to see him since the outbreak as he has to self-isolate to prevent transmission.
Ellesha claimed the past two weeks had “been hell for this family”, revealing that he begged officials wearing Hazmat costumes not to slaughter his ducks because they were like his “closest friends”.
The mother-of-one, from Cranbrook, Exeter, said: “He saw all his ducks killed and they were like his closest friends.
The UK has been hit by a record-breaking bird flu outbreak that has led to the culling of 500,000 captive birds in recent months (Photo: PA)
“He phones us often, asking us what the doctors said – but we can’t answer questions to which we don’t know the answers. “
Muscovy ducks originally lived in a public space near Mr. Gosling’s house.
He began to feed them, eventually becoming friendly enough over a number of years that he might bring them to his property to live with him.
Ellesha said he started noticing several of them getting sick a few days before Christmas.
After DEFRA and APHA got wind, more than 100 ducks living outside Alan’s house on his property were shot in an attempt to prevent the spread shortly following Christmas.
Although he argued once morest this, the 20 ducks who lived inside his house with him were slaughtered on New Years Day by a team in Hazmat suits.
Ellesha says several samples have been taken for her stepfather, although all the results have not yet been confirmed to the family.
They were told that a test for the general flu virus came back positive, and one of the tests for the bird flu virus also came back positive.
More: Avian flu
The strain for which one of the tests came back positive was the H5N1 strain, but three of the avian flu tests came back negative, leaving the family in doubt.
While the exterior of the property has been partially cleaned up, the family say the interior of the property remains contaminated until Mr. Gosling is confirmed to be no longer infectious.
The family want the interior of the property to be cleared of contamination as they feared his condition worsened, but say this has yet to happen despite their appeals.
They say they have been told that cleaning the interior of the house will have to be paid for by Alan – yet another blow to the retiree.
They are now in limbo, unable to support him or visit him as he mourns the loss of his pets, as concerns regarding his health remain.
The case comes amid heightened fears over infectious pathogens in the UK following two years of the Covid pandemic.
The UK has been hit by a record-breaking bird flu outbreak that has led to the culling of 500,000 captive birds in recent months.
But experts say the risk to human health from bird flu remains very low, and there is a low risk to food safety.
Professor Mike Tildesley, Professor of Infectious Disease Modeling at the University of Warwick, said: ‘This will clearly be great news, but the bottom line is that human H5N1 infections are really rare and almost always occur in as a result of long-term contact with poultry, ”he said.
“There has never been any evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission of H5N1, so at this time I would not consider this a significant public health risk. “
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