On Tuesday, China reported the world’s first human infection of the H10N3 avian flu strain but said the risk of its widespread transmission among people was low.
In the eastern city of Zhenjiang, a 41-year-old man was admitted to hospital with fever symptoms on April 28 and a month later was diagnosed with H10N3, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said in an online statement.
The NHC said that “The risk of large-scale spread is extremely low,” and that the man was in a stable condition with his close contacts having reported no “abnormalities”.
The health body described H10N3 as being low pathogenic, ie less likely to cause death or severe illness, in birds. It said there had been no human cases of H10N3 previously reported anywhere in the world.
A number of strains of bird flu have been found among animals in China but mass outbreaks in humans are rare.
Five waves of the H7N9 influenza epidemic occurred in China between March 2013 and September 2017. Low pathogenicity H7N9 dominated in the first four waves, whereas highly pathogenic H7N9 influenza emerged in poultry and spread to humans during the fifth wave, causing widespread concern.
H7N9 has infected 1668 people and claimed 616 lives since 2013, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. In the wake of recent avian flu outbreaks in Africa and Eurasia, the head of China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention last week urged closer surveillance in poultry farms, markets and wild birds.
COVID was first detected at a wet market with food and live animals in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. This is where, according to the most likely scenario from the WHO report on the virus’ origins, it is thought that the SARS-CoV-2 virus first jumped from animals to humans.
Source: Medical Xpress
