China has reported the first human case of infection with a rare strain of bird flu known as H10N.
Gatekeepers News reports that China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Tuesday announced that a 41-year-old man in the country’s eastern province of Jiangsu was confirmed as the first human case of infection with a rare strain of bird flu known as H10N3.
According to the Health Commission, the man who is a resident of the city of Zhenjiang, was admitted to hospital on April 28 and diagnosed with H10N3 on May 28. It, however, did not give further details on how the man got infected.
The NHC noted that the patient’s condition is now stable and he is ready to be discharged as no other cases were found among his close contacts nor reported globally.
The Health Commission explained that H10N3, which is low pathogenic, causes relatively less severe disease in poultry and is unlikely to cause a large-scale outbreak.
Gatekeepers News reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that: “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.”
