Chinese health authorities announced Tuesday the detection of the world’s first case of H10N3 bird flu in humans.
A 41-year-old man was admitted to hospital with a fever in eastern Zhenjiang city on April 28 and was diagnosed with H10N3 a month later, the Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) said in a statement.
The NHC assured that until now a human contagion of this virus had never been detected, that it is an “accidental” transmission and that the risk of a large-scale spread is “very low.”
The affected man is stable and his close contacts did not register “abnormalities,” he added. The Commission points out that the status of the infected person has improved to the point of reaching the requirements to be discharged.
According to experts, who reiterate that it is an isolated case, the H10N3 virus does not have the ability to effectively infect humans.
The Commission called on citizens to avoid contact with dead birds on a daily basis and to try not to approach live birds either, as well as to take care of food hygiene and to go immediately to a doctor in case of symptoms such as fever. or breathing problems.
According to the NHC, so far no human contagion of H10N3 has been recorded in the world.
In China, several strains of bird flu have been detected in animals, but in people it is rare.
The last bird flu epidemic in the Asian giant took place at the end of 2016 and 2017, with the H7N9 virus.
H7N9 infected 1,668 people and killed 616 since 2013, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
COVID-19 was first detected in a food and animal market in Wuhan, in the center of the country, at the end of 2019. Since then it has caused more than 3.5 million deaths worldwide.
With information from AFP and EFE
