Bird flu: Nine-year-old girl is Ecuador’s first confirmed human case

His Ministry of Health Equatorial announced yesterday Tuesday (10/1) her first – particularly rare – case bird flu in humans, a few weeks after the declaration of a state of health emergency in the Latin American country and the identification of outbreaks of disease in poultry farms.

“The first case of influenza A-H5 (also bird flu) was confirmed in a nine-year-old girl in the province of Bolivar”in the heart of the Andes, the ministry confirmed in a press release it released.

“The working hypothesis we are making is that the disease was transmitted due to direct contact with a bird carrying the virus”, explained the Ministry of Health. He did not specify the child’s condition.

However, local media reported that her condition is stable and she is being treated at a hospital in the capital Quito, where she was transferred. Her relatives were also quarantined

On November 30, Ecuadorian authorities declared a 90-day health emergency after an outbreak of bird flu was detected at a breeding facility in the Andean province of Cotopaxi, which neighbors Bolivar. A new outbreak in this last province was detected yesterday Monday.

The ministry emphasized that “so far no other case of transmission to humans has been reported”..

The poultry sector in Ecuador raises some 263 million chickens; it has an annual turnover of 1.8 billion dollars and employs about 300,000 workers.

Bird flu has killed tens of millions of birds in the US in the past year; one human case was reported in April 2022.

Thousands of birds were slaughtered in the US, Ecuador and other Latin American countries to prevent the spread of the disease.

According the official figures of the World Health Organization from January 2003 to November 2022 there have been 868 cases of bird flu in humans. Of these people, 457 died.