China has recorded its first fatality attributable to the H3N8 bird flu virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed Tuesday that China’s first H3N8 adult case has already died. The 56-year-old woman from Guangdong province reportedly began manifesting symptoms on Feb. 22.
The patient was hospitalized for severe pneumonia on March 3. But she subsequently died on March 16. Her case was the country’s first reported fatality attributable to the strain.
In late March, Medical Each day reported in regards to the case of a lady who had exposure to live poultry before falling sick. On the time, specific details about her condition weren’t released. Local officials only relayed that she had multiple myeloma and other underlying health conditions.
“No abnormalities have been present in close contacts to date. Experts consider that it is a sporadic case and the danger of virus transmission is low at this stage,” the Guangdong Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on the time.
In WHO’s update, the organization learned that the lady’s case was detected through the severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) surveillance system.
A history of untamed birds frequenting an area near her home was indicated, so officials collected environmental samples from the patient’s residence and the wet market she frequented before the onset of the disease.
Testing results showed that the samples from the wet market were positive for avian influenza. Nonetheless, no contacts of the lady developed an infection or symptom on the time of reporting.
The lady was the primary adult case and the third overall case recorded in China since last 12 months. The primary two cases were of a 4-year-old boy in central China and a 5-year-old boy in Hunan province. Each had non-fatal infections.
Though it’s assumed that the lady contracted the virus from exposure to live poultry, the WHO said it’s “still unclear what the precise source of this infection is and the way this virus is expounded to other avian influenza A(H3N8) viruses which can be circulating in animals.”
The United Nations health agency called for further animal and human investigations to realize answers and insights into the case and the strain, in response to The Guardian.
The WHO also maintained that there isn’t a reason to consider that the virus can spread easily between humans at this point, adding that the danger of getting human-to-human transmissions continues to be low.
“To reduce the danger of infection, countries should increase public awareness of the importance of avoiding contact with high-risk environments equivalent to live animal markets/farms, live poultry, or surfaces that could be contaminated by poultry or bird feces,” the organization advised.
Staff from the Animal Protection Ministry holds a dead chick during a cull to contain an outbreak of bird flu, at a farm within the village of Modeste, Ivory Coast, August 14, 2015.
REUTERS/Luc Gnago