A porpoise discovered stranded on a Swedish seaside in June died of hen flu, the primary time the virus has been detected in a porpoise, Sweden’s National Veterinary Institute mentioned Wednesday.
“As far as we all know that is the primary confirmed case on the planet of bird flu in a porpoise,” veterinarian Elina Thorsson mentioned in an announcement.
“It is likely that the porpoise somehow came into contact with infected birds,” she mentioned.
The younger male was discovered stranded, alive, on a seaside in western Sweden in late June. Despite efforts from the general public to get it to swim out to deeper waters, it was affected by exhaustion and died the identical night.
The hen flu virus, H5N1, was present in a number of of its organs.
“Contrary to seals, where illnesses caused by a flu virus have been detected multiple times, there have been only a handful of reports of flu virus in cetaceans”, Thorsson mentioned.
The virus has additionally beforehand been detected in different mammals, together with crimson foxes, otters, lynx and skunks, the institute mentioned.
Europe and North America are presently seeing an enormous outbreak of hen flu amongst wild birds.
© 2022 AFP
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World’s first case of hen flu in porpoise: Sweden (2022, August 31)
retrieved 31 August 2022
from https://phys.org/news/2022-08-world-case-bird-flu-porpoise.html
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