China has reported the world’s first human case of infection with the H10N3 strain of bird flu, said the country’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Tuesday.
The case has been detected in a 41-year-old male living in the city of Zhenjiang, which is located in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu.
The man has been hospitalized since April 28 after developing a fever and other symptoms, the NHC said in a statement. The NHC confirmed that the man was diagnosed with the H10N3 avian influenza virus on May 28.
H10N3 is a strain of the bird flu virus which is found in poultry and the risk of it spreading on a large scale is relatively very low, the NHC added.
This is the first human case of the H10N3 strain of the bird flu being reported out of China. However, there have been several other strains of the avian influenza present in China with some sporadically infecting humans, usually those working with poultry.
However, there has been no significant number of human infections with bird flu since the H7N9 strain, which killed around 300 people during 2016 – 2017.
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