China announced the first human infection with the H3N8 variant of the avian flu. However, as pointed out by the government’s health committee, the risk of it spreading to humans is low.
- Avian influenza is an acute infectious disease that affects birds. It is present all over the world, practically all species of birds are susceptible to infection
- The most known strains causing infection are H5N1 and H7N9. In both cases, human infections have occurred in recent years
- Now, Chinese authorities report on the first human case involving the H3N8 variant
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The first human case of H3N8 avian flu
The case was detected on April 5 in a four-year-old boy from Henan Province (central China). The baby developed a fever as well as “other symptoms”, the China National Health Commission reported. On April 10, the boy was taken to hospital.
The child had previously been exposed to poultry and wild birds raised in his home, as reported in a statement.
H3N8 variant of avian flu — except for the birds — it is common in horses and dogs and has even been detected in seals. However, no cases of H3N8 in humans have been reported to date — officials from the Health Committee added.
Genome sequence analysis showed that the H3N8 virus found in humans is the result of an antigenic jump, i.e. there has been a change in a fragment of the virus previously present in poultry and wild birds — Nicola Lewis, a flu expert at the Royal Veterinary College in Great Britain, explained in an interview with Reuters.
Low risk of an epidemic among humans
Experts point out that China’s large-scale populations of both farmed and wild birds create an ideal environment for bird viruses to mix and mutate. There are also rare cases of infection in people who work on poultry farms. Human infections, in turn, can lead to adaptive mutations that theoretically allow viruses to spread more easily to mammals.
However, the Chinese health committee noted that preliminary studies showed that the detected variant does not currently have the capacity to effectively infect humans, and the risk of a large-scale epidemic remains low.
Last year, Chinese officials reported the first human case of the H10N3 avian flu virus. However, no large-scale infection with avian influenza viruses has been reported since 2016-2017, when the H7N9 variant killed around 300 people.