People are seen in front of the hospital in Guangzhou, Guangdong province of China on 11 December 2023. Reports indicate that respiratory infections are starting a time of high occurrence as winter approaches in many areas. The influenza A H3N2 subtype and the B Victoria influenza virus are currently both highly widespread due to the large increase in influenza activity. The winter pandemic season of influenza is slowly approaching.
John Ricky/ Anadolu / Getty Images
China
on Wednesday reported the death of a woman due to an infection of combined H3N2
and H10N5 strains of bird flu after a cross-species transmission, but said the
risk of human-to-human transmission is low.
The
63-year-old woman from Anhui province had underlying health conditions and
developed cough, sore throat, fever and other symptoms on 30 November and died
on 16 December, the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration in a
statement.
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Screenings
of close contacts were negative and no suspected cases were found, it said.
Whole
genome sequence analyses of the virus showed that the H10N5 virus is of avian
origin and did not have the ability to effectively infect humans, the agency
said.
“The
outbreak is an episodic cross-species transmission from bird to humans,”
it said.
The
risk of the virus infecting people is low, and no human-to-human transmission
has occurred, it added.
China
has huge populations of both farmed and wild birds of many species, creating an
ideal environment for avian viruses to mix and mutate.
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