NEWS UPDATE: Are we prepared enough to stop pandemic 2.0? A new kind of Bird Flu Virus, again from China…WHY???

China has reported the world’s first human case of infection with H10N3 strain of bird flu. China’s National Health Commision has confirmed that a 41 year old man in Zhenjiang, northwest of Shanghai, has caught the infection. This man hospitalised on April 28, after developing a fever and other symptoms.

He was diagnosed as having the H10N3 Avain influenza virus on May 28, a month later, the commission has said. However, it has not given details on how the man had been infected with the virus?

What is H10N3?

H10N3 is a low pathogenic or relatively less severe strain of the virus in poultry and the risk of its spreading on a very large scale is low, the commission has added.

As per the experts, “Only 160 isolates of the virus were reported in 40 years to 2018. No other cases of human infection with H10N3 reported globally earlier”.

How to prevent spread of H10N3?

The experts asked locals to avoid contact with sick or dead poultry. Also the locals were asked to avoid direct contact with live birds. Apart from this, people asked to pay attention to food hygiene and wear masks. Also the authorities asked people to check for fever and respiratory symptoms.  

The man was stable and ready to be discharged from the hospital. Medical observation of his close contacts had not found any other cases. Many different strain of Avain influenza are present in China and some sporadically infected people, usually those working with poultry.

There have been no significant numbers of human infections with bird flu, since the H7N9 stain killed around 300 people during 2016-2017. No other cases of human infection with H10N3 have been previously reported globally.