BARCELONA: Spain has alerted the World Well being Group of what it believes to be a person-to-person transmission of the swine flu virus in its A(H1N1)v variant, a spokesperson for well being authorities within the Catalonia area confirmed to Reuters on Friday (Feb 27).
In a later assertion, the Catalan well being division mentioned the chance evaluation for the inhabitants was thought-about “very low”.
The individual contaminated didn’t exhibit flu-like respiratory signs, it mentioned, and checks on direct contacts confirmed the virus had not retransmitted.
An earlier report by newspaper El Pais citing Catalan well being division sources mentioned the affected person – who has since recovered – had no contact with pigs or pig farms, main specialists to conclude it was a human-to-human transmission of the pathogen.
This set off alarm bells as a result of pandemic potential of the swine flu virus if it recombines with a human flu virus, which might occur if a pig is contaminated with each on the similar time, the El Pais report added.
The WHO didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.
In 2023, the Netherlands notified the WHO of a confirmed human an infection with a swine influenza A(H1N1)v virus in an grownup with no historical past of occupational publicity to animals.
In 2009, the swine flu pandemic in people contaminated hundreds of thousands of individuals. It was attributable to a virus that contained genetic materials from viruses that have been circulating in pigs, birds and people.
