2023-06-14 17:57:06
In recent weeks, new outbreaks of avian flu have appeared in farms in the South West. The Covars wants to strengthen prevention and indicates this Monday, June 12 that the virus is in the process of establishing itself permanently in French fauna, in several forms, making it much more difficult to fight.
The Committee for Monitoring and Anticipating Health Risks (Covars), responsible for informing the public authorities, considers that the persistence of the virus and the multiplication of outbreaks “induces a significant risk to human health”.
Its president, Brigitte Autran explained Monday at a press conference that “It is not a question of crying wolf” and that a risk of a short-term pandemic is not envisaged. Remarks confirmed by Bruno Lina, director of the National Center for Respiratory Viruses who even judges the risk of an epidemic or an influenza pandemic “low”, with transmission between humans of a new virus.
However, he goes on to explain that the virus is “becoming endemic in wildlife in France” its risk of transmission to other animals or to humans therefore increases statistically.
The Covars envisages for the coming weeks “intense and sustained circulation on national territory, but with a virus that is not very suitable for humans”. It is simply “the current resurgence of wild and farmed outbreaks of avian influenza which increases the risk of transmission to humans”.
On June 5, the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau announced that the poultry vaccination campaign once morest avian flu should start in October, the Covars recommends taking the opportunity to also vaccinate farmers and other people in contact with birds, once morest seasonal flu to “limit the risk of recombination between avian and human viruses”.
The risks are very present, monitoring is required.
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