Several birds have fallen ill and died from an aggressive form of bird flu in recent weeks.
The public is now being asked not to touch sick birds.
Geese, cranes and other bird species have fallen ill, especially in Scania, after being affected by a highly pathogenic virus variant that is very aggressive.
Now Jonas Waldenström, professor of microbiology at Linnaeus University, urges the public not to touch sick birds.
– Birds with clear symptoms of bird flu should not be taken to a game rehabilitator. The risk of the virus being transmitted to humans is small, but it exists, and with the highly pathogenic variant, the virus amounts are large in sick birds, he says in a press release from Birdlife Sweden.
Behaving strangely
The outbreak in Skåne is not unexpected, as thousands of cranes have died of bird flu during the autumn in Germany, France, Spain and Great Britain, according to Jonas Waldenström.
Mallards do not normally get seriously ill, but are carriers of the virus and because they can move long distances during migration, they spread new virus types quickly.
In Sweden, the infection is monitored, among other things, by the Ottenby bird station, where mallards are sampled regularly. Recently, a mallard was found with the aggressive variant of H5N1 that causes bird flu. It is the second time that a highly pathogenic virus variant has been found in a mallard at the duck trap in Ottenby.
Bird flu is mainly spread among wetland birds via water, but birds of prey are also affected.
The virus often causes neurological symptoms, where affected birds may swim in circles or shake their heads in a strange manner.
The outbreak is expected to die down during the winter, but the infection is here to stay and now has global distribution.
