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China has reported the first-ever case of a human infected with the H10N3 strain of bird flu.
According to reports, a 41-year-old from Jiangsu was hospitalized after experiencing symptoms such as a high fever.
However, the man is said to now be stable and ready to be discharged.
H10N3 bird flu
Beijing’s National Health Commission (NHC) classes the H10N3 strain of bird flu as ‘low pathogenic’.
This means it ‘is unlikely to cause a large-scale outbreak’.
However, many virologists consider a flu pandemic ‘inevitable’ if strains of bird flu mutate and become easily transmissible.
‘Human-to-human transmission’
The World Health Organization told Reuters: “The source of the patient’s exposure to the H10N3 virus is not known at this time, and no other cases were found in emergency surveillance among the local population.
“At this time, there is no indication of human-to-human transmission.
“As long as avian influenza viruses circulate in poultry, sporadic infection of avian influenza in humans is not surprising, which is a vivid reminder that the threat of an influenza pandemic is persistent.”
Russia
Earlier this year, Russia confirmed its first case of a bird flu strain being passed to humans.
Officials say seven workers at a poultry plant contracted the H5N8 variant of the virus.
Head of Russia’s consumer health watchdog Anna Popova said all the workers are now ‘feeling well’. She also said that ‘adequate measures had been quickly taken’ to stop the disease spreading.
Popova added: “The discovery of these mutations when the virus has not still acquired an ability to transmit from human to human gives us all, the entire world, time to prepare for possible mutations and react in an adequate and timely fashion.”
