Pigeon virus 'poses no risk to people' according to Influenza Specialist Group chairman Alan Hampson
September 6, 2011 Tuesday
The discovery of a rare but highly contagious virus which has killed pigeon flocks in Victoria does not pose a major risk to humans, experts say. Several pigeons have died and a number of properties in northern Victoria have been quarantined amid Australia's first outbreak of avian paramyxovirus (APMV) in pigeons.
While people who handle infected birds and those with suppressed immune systems face the greatest risk of contracting APMV, it usually causes only mild flu-like symptoms or conjunctivitis.
Influenza Specialist Group chairman Alan Hampson said APMV was unlike avian influenza virus, or bird flu, which can prove fatal in humans and birds. "(APMV) are in a completely different group of viruses altogether," Dr Hampson told AAP. "It rarely transmits to humans, and when it does only cause mild illness ... possibly a bit of conjunctivitis.”But it's very rare to be a human infection and rare to be anything but trivial. "So it's in a different ballpark from avian flu."
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