The Government has issued a stark warning after deadly bird flu was detected in a UK sheep for the first time.
The case was identified in Yorkshire during routine surveillance on a premises where avian influenza had been confirmed in captive birds.
‘The infected sheep has been humanely culled to enable extensive testing,’ an alert from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs read.
This is the first time the strain, called H5N1, has been found in a sheep in England—but not the first time it has been detected in livestock in other countries.
In January, the first bird-flu related human death was reported in Louisiana in the US.
The victim, who was 65 with underlying health conditions, contracted bird flu after being exposed to a personal flock of birds and wild birds.
‘While the current public health risk for the general public remains low, people who work with birds, poultry or cows, or have recreational exposure to them, are at higher risk,’ the Louisiana state health department warned at the time.
In late January, a patient in the Midlands was diagnosed with H5N1 after ‘close and prolonged contact with a large number of infected birds’
The strain, called H5N1, has been found in a sheep in England. It- has previously been detected in livestock n other countries such as the US. Pictured here: dead cows at a Californian dairy farm
The infection of British sheep follows the first human case to be detected in England earlier this year.
The unidentified person, thought to be from the West Midlands, is believed to have contracted it on a farm where bird flu was found.
They were caught after officials carried out routine testing on people who had been in close contact with the infected poultry.
Bird flu has already caused multiple outbreaks in cattle in the US which have then gone on to infect workers at dairy farms. Some cases have also been found in pigs.
In November, it was reported the Centers for Disease Control tested 115 workers at farms suffering outbreaks and found eight of them were positive for the virus —an infection rate of seven per cent.
Many of them had no symptoms, which officials fear indicates H5N1 is spreading far more widely than previously thought.
Late last year hundreds of American cattle farms across dozens of states were confirmed as experienced bird flu outbreaks among their livestock.
No cases in British cattle have been found, but officials are monitoring herds due to the risk.
UK scientists tasked with developing ‘scenarios of early human transmission’ of bird flu have warned that 5 per cent of infected people could die if the virus took off in humans (shown under scenario three). Under another scenario, the scientists assumed 1 per cent of those infected would be hospitalised and 0.25 per cent would die — similar to how deadly Covid was in autumn 2021 (scenario one). The other saw a death rate of 2.5 per cent (scenario two)
Alan Gosling (pictured), a retired engineer in Devon who kept ducks at home, caught bird flu in early 2022 after his pets became infected
More broadly, H5N1 has been shown to be capable of jumping to numerous mammal species like mink, foxes, raccoons, bears and seals.
Pets are also vulnerable, at least 99 domestic cats have been infected since late 2022, according to the US Department of Agriculture, some through raw pet food.
Health experts are concerned over the virus’s success at jumping between multiple species, as each iteration gives it the opportunity to mutate to become better at infecting humans.
Experts have previously told MailOnline this could, in theory risk another pandemic, though they added there is no evidence of this at present.
Professor Paul Hunter, a renowned infectious diseases expert from the University of East Anglia said: ‘The concern is that should the virus evolve further to be better able to spread in humans then we would be at risk of another pandemic.
‘There is no evidence of that at present, but such a future shift cannot be excluded.’
Humans are unlikely to catch bird flu from eating poultry and game birds because it is heat-sensitive, and properly cooking the poultry will kill the virus.
Instead, human infections mostly occur when the virus gets into a person’s eyes, nose, mouth or is inhaled.
Usual symptoms in humans are high fever, a cough, sore throat, muscle aches and a general feeling of malaise.
And just like with ordinary flu, it can quickly develop into serious respiratory illness and pneumonia.
Britain has seen cases of bird flu in humans before.
One, Alan Gosling — a retired engineer in Devon who kept ducks at home — caught the virus in early 2022 after his pets became infected.
He later tested negative while he was in quarantine for nearly three weeks.