Kontakt 2006, 8(1):154-158 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2006.026

Bird influenzaBiomedicine

Kvetoslava Kotrbová^1,2,3,*, Markéta Kastnerová^1,2

¹ Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra veřejného a sociální zdravotnictví

² Krajská hygienická stanice Jihočeského kraje se sídlem v Českých Budějovicích

³ Kontaktní a doléčovací centrum pro drogovou závislost, o. s., Háječek, České Budějovice

In the course of recent years, the occurrence of a new subtype of the influenza A virus (H5N1), so called bird influenza, resulted in fear. First reports on the virus came from Italy, from the beginning of the last century. The virus was first isolated in South Africa in 1961. It first infected humans in Hong Kong in 1997. From the middle of 2003 it caused the largest and most severe infections of the poultry, and in December 2003, infections in people, who were in contact with sick birds, were recorded. Since then, the disease was demonstrated by laboratory diagnosis in over 100 patients in four Asian countries (Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam) and more than half the patients died. Most cases occurred in children and young adults, who were healthy before this infection. Birds are hosts of this virus. The infection propagates most rapidly in domestic birds. The disease also occurs in free-living, migrating birds. The virus cannot be easily transferred to humans. The transfer from man to man is also not easy. If H5N1 were mutated into a form as infectious as human influenza, there would be a danger of pandemic. The propagation of the bird influenza leads countries throughout the world to the development of plans for suppressing possible pandemic. The disease development can be positively affected by two drugs from the group of neuraminidase inhibitors. The first drug is oseltamivir (Tamiflu), which is available on our market, the second drug being zanamivir (Relenza), which is not available there. Particularly vaccination is of prior importance in the influenza prevention.

Keywords: H5N1 virus; oseltamivir; pandemic virus; pandemic plan

Published: May 26, 2006  Show citation