INTRODUCTION 

Health officials in Victoria, Australia reported the country's first human case of H5N1 avian flu also known as bird flu. A child got the virus in India and was sick in March. According to Victoria Department of Health, the child had a severe infection but has fully recovered. Contact tracing found no sign of virus spreading in Australia, and officials said the risk is low since the virus doesn't spread easily among people. 


The H5N1 virus, also known as avian or bird flu, mostly infects birds and is very dangerous. Until now , Australia was the only continent where animals were free of this virus. However different strain of bird flu was found at an egg farm near Melbourne.

Human cases of H5N1 are very rare, but some have been deadly. This is Australia's first confirmed human case and first time H5N1 has been found in any person or animal there. According to Health officials the strain that infected the child is different from the one in US and has never been found in Australia before. 

India still has occasional outbreaks in poultry, with recent cases in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from January 2022 to April 2024, 26 H5N1 human cases were reported from 8 countries, but non of them were from India. Of these cases, 14 were severe, 7 were fatal, 4 were mild, and 8 had no symptoms.



CONCLUSION 

There are minimum chances of outbreak of bird flu (H5N1 virus) in humans because it is not easily transmissible among humans, as it can be observed that no further cases are detected in Australia. People who were reported positive for the virus in other countries as well have survived.