China reports first-ever human case of bird flu strain H10N3 in world
A 41-year-old man from China's Zhenjiang city has become the first human to be infected with the H10N3 strain of bird flu in the world.
China has reported the first case of human infection with the H10N3 strain of bird flu, China’s National Health Commission said on Tuesday. A 41-year-old man in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province is the first known human to be infected with a strain of bird flu.
H10N3 is a low pathogenic, or relatively less severe, strain of the virus in poultry and the risk of it spreading on a large scale was very low, the NHC added.
Health authorities played down the outbreak, saying the case was a sporadic virus transmission from poultry to humans, and the risk of causing a pandemic was extremely low.
The report further said that the statement, however, did not elaborate on how the man had got infected with the virus.
No other cases of human infection with H10N3 have previously been reported globally, the commission said and Reuters quoted.
Only around 160 isolates of the virus were reported in the 40 years to 2018, mostly in wild birds or waterfowl in Asia and some limited parts of North America, and none had been detected in chickens so far, he added.
