First Person In The UK Infected With H5N1 Bird Flu

Alan Gosling, aged 79, is the first UK resident to test positive for the H5N1 bird flu; he lived with about 20 ducks inside his home in Buckfastleigh, south of Devon in England, and a flock of more than 100 ducks lived outside his property. After feeding the animals for some time, he brough back the 20 ducks into his home to keep as pets.

In December of 2021, a few of the ducks outside Alan Gosling’s home fell ill. After this, The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) ran tests on the birds and found positive cases of H5N1 avian flu. Shortly after Christmas, the entire flock outside and in Alan Gosling’s home were culled, leading to Alan Gosling himself being tested for several strains of avian flu, coming back positive with H5N1.

Ellesha Gosling, who is Alan Gosling’s daughter-in-law, spoke to DevonLive and said, “The past couple of weeks have been hell for this family. He saw all of his ducks killed, and they were like his closest friends.”

Currently, he is quarantined in his home, saying he feels “absolutely fine but very lonely”. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the H5N1 strain of avian flu primarily infects birds, though on the rare occasion, it does jump to humans and can cause severe diseases and deaths.

Health agencies are closely monitoring for new human cases of H5N1, because if the virus mutates in a way that lets it spread easily between people, then the pathogen could have a “pandemic potential”.

For now, all that we can do is stay safe as best as we can with the current knowledge available, though if you would like to keep up to date, then it may be time to start following some health pages on social media, such as Paul Nuki, who is the senior editor for Global Health Security, and the BNO Newsroom, who cover the coronavirus news but have followed the bird flu news as well.