The Ministry of Health and the communities approve monitoring suspected cases of bird flu
The masks will cease to be mandatory next Wednesday not only in public transport, but also in opticians, audiometry centers and orthopedics, the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, announced this Thursday to the regional councilors at the Interterritorial Health Council held telematically.
Thus, the protection should only be used in health and social health centers and in pharmacies. The Council of Ministers will approve the end of the mask on public transport on Tuesday, a measure that will almost certainly come into force the next day, the 8th, once it is published in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
In addition, health administrations have decided to take more measures to try to stop bird flu. The Public Health Commission, in which the department of Carolina Darias and the autonomous communities participate, has approved this Thursday an update of the protocol for this disease that significantly increases surveillance of people suspected of having been in contact with N5H1.
The text, prepared by the Ponencia de Alertas, stresses that although the chances of a sick bird or any other animal infecting a human are low, there may be “sporadic cases in the future”, as happened in September in Guadalajara, when a A worker at that farm became the first Spaniard to be directly infected with bird flu by being in contact with birds that carried the virus.
To control suspected cases, the Public Health Commission establishes that people exposed to the virus will have “double surveillance that allows suspicious cases to be detected as early as possible” and “will increase the probability of detecting asymptomatic cases.” In this way, they will be subjected to passive surveillance of symptoms compatible with the disease and screened through PCR.
The new document ‘Prevention, early detection and control of bird flu in people exposed to outbreaks in birds and mink’ focuses on the possibility of infection by aerosols, small drops of saliva that remain in the air for a while. “Due to the high volume of aerosols that can be generated in these outbreaks and in the cleaning and disinfection tasks derived from them, the people related to the focus (including farm workers and people involved in control tasks) will be considered exposed regardless of the use of PPE during the exhibition”, the text points out.
Avian influenza has become a new public health threat and alarms have been raised after the death of minks affected by the disease on a farm in Galicia. Mink, like other mammals, can generate virus mutations that make them more lethal to humans.
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