The World Health Organization (WHO) said that a Chinese woman was the first known person to die from the H2N8 variant of bird flu.
The public health group said that the avian influenza strain doesn't appear to spread easily between humans.
- The
56-year-old woman was the third known case of H3N8 ― all the cases have
been reported in China. She had multiple underlying conditions and a
history of exposure to poultry.
- Samples collected from a wet
market the woman had visited before she became sick tested positive for
avian flu, indicating that she may have been infected there, WHO said.
- Because
the virus "does not have the ability to spread easily from person to
person," the WHO said that the "risk of it spreading among humans" is
low.
- William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt, said that human-to-human transmission of avian flu is rare. He said that when it happens, the person "is usually a very close caregiver of the sick person."
- A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said that a separate strain of avian flu, known as H5N1, is causing "the largest foreign animal disease outbreak in U.S. history."
- H5N1 has infected nearly 60 million commercial and backyard flocks of birds in 47 states.
- The
Agriculture Department has also identified avian flu infections in 110
different mammals since May 2022, including raccoons, foxes, skunks, and
grizzly bears.
