A Chinese woman died after being infected with a new avian virus, called H10N8. The health authorities are reassuring about the risk of human-to-human transmission.
H1N1, H6N1, H7N9, this is the list of the different strains of avian flu that are currently rife in the world. And unfortunately, the threat does not end there. Because China has the first death on Wednesday caused by a new strain of this virus, called “H10N8”. Chinese and international experts are however reassuring about the risk of a potential human-to-human transmission.
A strain never detected in humans
The victim is a 73-year-old Chinese woman who died on December 6 of respiratory failure. She was being treated at a hospital in Nanchang, the capital of central Jiangxi province, local health departments said in a statement. The victim had visited a poultry market before being admitted to hospital on November 30. According to biologists, the H10N8 strain had never been detected before in a human being.
This H10N8 strain was first discovered in 2007, according to a recent study published in the scientific magazine Virology Journal. This avian virus, now detected in humans, had however already been detected on a duck in a poultry market in southern China in January.
In addition, the Chinese newspaper Jiangxi Daily, which quotes an anonymous source, reveals that the first analyzes seem to suggest that this death is an isolated case and that the risk of transmission to humans on a larger scale remains limited.
The fear that one of the viral strains might mutate
In addition, China has been contested with the H7N9 bird flu virus since last winter, which has infected around 140 people, killing 45 people. Cases of H7N9 have also been identified in Hong Kong and Taiwan, even if contaminations seem to have slowed down since June.
In addition, the first human case of infection with an influenza A (H6N1) virus was recently identified in Taiwan. For researchers, “the question of human-to-human transmission” is not excluded.
Finally, faced with all these threats, scientists fear above all that a mutation of one of the viral strains of avian influenza promotes human-to-human contamination. A scenario that could trigger a global pandemic …
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