China Reports Two Human Cases Of Bird Flu

Fact checked
bird flu

China has reported two human cases of bird flu amid growing concerns that the virus could jump to people and cause a pandemic.

According to the BNO news agency, a 53-year-old woman from the Jiangsu province in eastern China tested positive last month for the H5N1 strain that has been devastating the world’s bird populations.

Meanwhile, Chinese health officials have announced that a 49-year-old man in southern China’s Guangdong province tested positive for H5N6 after coming into contact with live birds.

The people in question live more than 800 hundreds miles apart

The Mail Online reports: Concerns about a potential spillover have been brewing in recent weeks after a Cambodian girl died from the virus and her father tested positive. Scientists on the ground said the strain they were infected with had mutations that made it better at infecting humans.

There is nothing to suggest that the two China cases are connected, nor that any strain of bird flu has spread from human-to-human.

Officials have also now confirmed that the cases in Cambodia came from poultry and were not spread person-to-person.

Furthermore, the cases in Cambodia were caused by H5N1 clade 2.3.2.1c, an older variant which is endemic to wild birds and poultry in the country.

The female Chinese patient started experiencing symptoms after eating chicken on January 31, and tested positive for H5N1 sometime in February.

Her current state is unknown and little information has been released.

Genetic sequencing in China found that the case was due to the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b — the avian flu strain currently devastating bird populations globally and which has infected many birds and mammals since 2021.

A clade is a further subdivision of influenza viruses within strains.

Meanwhile, a man in southern China’s Guangdong province has tested positive for H5N6.

4 Comments

  1. Animals get colds Dogs and cats and birds It’s no big deal. It’s not good to publicise it to please WHO.

    • Ya it is another Pharmaceutical Act of Terrorism. They are going to kill the chickens so humans die of starvation

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