The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) called on Thursday (25) for an urgent and unified response to combat the “alarming” increase in cases of bird flu in humans and animals in the Asia-Pacific region.
The H5N1 virus has spread more widely, reaching South America and Antarctica and infecting new wild and domestic animals, the organization said in a statement.
“Since late 2023, we have seen an increase in human cases and the spread of the virus to new animal species,” said Kachen Wongsathapornchai, regional manager of FAO’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases.
“The emergence of new strains of A/H5N1, which are more easily transmissible, increases the threat of a pandemic. Immediate and coordinated preventive measures are essential.”
The UN agency counted 13 new human infections reported in Cambodia since the end of 2023, with additional cases in China and Vietnam.
Indonesia and the Philippines are experiencing heightened security due to their diverse ecological landscape and limited biosecurity measures, while India, Nepal and Bangladesh are also battling outbreaks, it said.
The organization called on member countries to work together to implement comprehensive surveillance systems, including whole genome sequencing, to track the spread and evolution of the virus.
He also called on governments, international organizations and the private sector to share information transparently and emphasized the need for the poultry sector to strengthen biosecurity measures.
Bird flu spreads to livestock from wild birds.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept the world in recent years, killing billions of farmed and wild birds and spreading to dozens of mammal species.
Australia, which is dealing with three parallel outbreaks of bird flu, reported a human case of H5N1 in May.
This year, a Chinese woman died from a rare H3N8 subtype of bird flu, the first death in the world from that strain.
Source: CNN Brasil
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