New Delhi: For some time now, another scary news has come out for the world battling different epidemics and diseases about bird flu. Bird flu has been confirmed in dolphins and porpoises. A bottlenose dolphin found dead in a Florida canal last spring has confirmed bird flu infection, scientists said on Wednesday. A week earlier, a similar infection was confirmed in a parois in Sweden. Swedish authorities suggested that a similar type of avian influenza was found in porpoises.
Avian flu has spread widely among North American and European birds. This variant of the virus has affected a wide range of species. However, so far only two cases have been confirmed in a group of marine mammals, which include dolphins, porpoises and whales. However, both these cases have forced scientists to investigate.
According to a New York Times report, Richard Webby, an influenza virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, believes it is too early to say whether the virus commonly infects marine mammals. However, he also said that the way it was confirmed in two different species on two different continents suggests that there will be other cases.
Doctor. Webby added that our global surveillance activities have never been so sensitive to just two events, but our team is now working with the Florida team for a follow-up study. Let us tell you that Dr. Webby was not involved in the initial identification of the virus in dolphins and porpoises.
Let us inform that last month, more than 5 million chickens died there after bird flu was confirmed at a poultry farm in the US state of Iowa. North American zoos are moving their birds away from people and other wildlife as the avian flu spreads rapidly in the US. Infected wild birds have been found in at least 24 provinces and the virus has been circulating in migratory waterfowl in Europe and Asia for almost a year.
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Tags: bird flu
First Published: 10 September 2022, 07:26 IST
