A 41-year-old man in China's eastern province of Jiangsu has been confirmed as the first human case of H10N3 strain infection in bird flu, the China National Health Commission (NHC) said Tuesday (June 1, 2021).
The NHC said in a statement that the man, a resident of Zhenjiang city, was admitted to hospital on April 28 after showing fever and other symptoms.
He was diagnosed as having the H10N3 avian influenza virus on May 28, it said, but did not give details on how the man had been infected with the virus.
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.
The man was stable and ready to be discharged from hospital. Medical observation of his close contacts had not found any other cases.
Many different strains of avian influenza are present in China and some sporadically infect people, usually those working with poultry. There have been no significant numbers of human infections with bird flu since the H7N9 strain killed around 300 people during 2016-2017.
According to Sino Biological, the H10N3 strain of bird flu was isolated in Hong Kong in 1979 and in a live-bird market in Thailand in 2011. H10 subtype influenza viruses have been found in various species of waterfowl across worldwide geographic areas for more than 50 years, the website mentions. H10 viruses occasionally infect humans, it adds.
Source: Online/SZK
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