China’s National Health Commission (NHC) announced this week a first-of-its-kind diagnosis of bird flu – in humans. The flu strain, H3N8, was detected in a 4-year-old boy who grew up in Henan Province. The child, according to the publication, became infected earlier in the month of last April.
The boy, according to the NHC, developed symptoms of the disease as early as April 5, after coming into contact with chickens and crows raised in his home. In light of his condition, he was hospitalized at a local medical institution. Also, health system workers in his area conducted tests among people with whom the patient came in contact, but found no record of others being infected.
The H3N8 strain is particularly common in horses and dogs, and cases of seals have been found to be infected with it, but up to the present diagnosis, no person has been found to be infected with it. However, the head of the Pasteur Institute’s virology unit, Eric Clerson, told Reuters that “there is a concern about the risk of an outbreak. We need to be concerned in case the virus starts to spread.”
Just last year China announced the first diagnosis of another strain of bird flu in humans. However, according to the NHC, the current virus does not have the ability to infect humans quickly, at least according to studies conducted so far on the subject. The committee also stressed that at this stage, “the risk of a large-scale epidemic is low.”