On 2 February 2023 the Ministry of Health published the 2nd update of the rapid risk assessment of the current situation.
Due to the increase of cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza A(HPAI) A(H5N1) of clade 2.3.4.4b
pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b, the Centro de Coordinación de Alertas y emergencias Sanitarias (CCAES) has updated the rapid risk assessment of the strain.
As can be read in the document available on the Ministry of Health website, on 23 September and 13 October there were two detections in nasopharyngeal exudates of workers at a poultry farm in Guadalajara. However, the absence of symptoms, the low viral load and the negative results obtained in the serological tests have been associated with environmental contamination in the farm affected by CCAES. In addition to these cases, an outbreak with high mortality was confirmed on 13 October in a mink farm in La Coruña, bringing the number of outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza HPAI A (H5N1) in poultry in Spain to 37 outbreaks in poultry and 151 in wild birds.
According to the document published by the CCAES "Human cases can be severe, but are unusual because bird-to-human transmission is rare and human-to-human transmission is extremely infrequent". Although only four other confirmed detections have been reported and one pending confirmation in
confirmed and one pending confirmation in humans since 2021, as Dr Jesús Rodríguez Díaz comments, "epidemiological monitoring is necessary in order to anticipate any possible case of zoonosis".
Finally, the Ministry stresses that we are facing the largest epizootic ever recorded worldwide. This term in the veterinary field is equivalent to an epidemic in the medical field.
