By: Shilpa Sharma
CHINA has reported the world’s first case of human infection with the H10N3 strain of bird flu from the country’s eastern province of Jiangsu.
The 41-year-old patient has spent more than a month in hospital after falling ill with the virus in late April.
He was admitted on April 28 after suffering from fever and was later diagnosed with avian influenza virus on May 28, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said.
The patient is in stable condition and due to be discharged.
The infection was ‘an accidental cross-species transmission’ and there was no indication that H10N3 can spread easily in humans, the NHC said.
Various strains of bird flu are present in China, which sometimes infect people, usually those working with poultry.
The NHC played down fears about the case, saying H10N3 was a mild strain of bird flu and the risk of it causing a large-scale outbreak ‘is low’.
British microbiologists have urged China to be transparent about its findings as it is a matter of concern whenever a flu strain jumps from animals to humans.
They have also sought information about the possibility of this strain transmitting from one human to another.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, H10N3 can infect chickens and other domestic poultry species. This virus does not normally infect humans, but cases of cross-species infections sometimes do happen.
