Alert: 56-year-old woman dies from bird flu after rare strain ‘visit the market’

After contracting a rare form of bird flu from China, a woman has been declared dead.

This 56-year old is not only the first to succumb to the deadly H3N8 virus, but also the third confirmed case.

3

3

World Health OrganizationReport It was discovered that the symptoms began in late February. The woman died three days later.

She had “multiple underlying conditions” and is believed to have caught the virus at a wet market, where scientists tracing her exposure collected samples positive for H3N8.

Unrelated cases of the same virus were reported in China in 2012 by two boys, but the viruses infected both men and they survived. Telegraph.

The H3N8 virus cannot be transmitted from person to person.

The WHO said: “No close contacts of the case developed an infection or symptoms of illness at the time of reporting.”

H3N8 has also been detected in various mammals before – including horses and dogs.

2011 saw 162 deaths from H3N8 in New England.

The greatest threat to human health is still the H5N1 pandemic of bird flu, although it’s not connected to this strain.

Dr Pablo Plaza, an expert in veterinary public health, told the Telegraph: “If transmission between mammals have started, the virus has changed and this could increase the risk for human health.”

He added: “Until now, this risk seems to be low – however, we must be alert since [the] The virus changes all the time.

“Several changes in the virus are needed to adapt to human-human transmission, so hopefully they will not occur,” he added.

Experts warn that the bird flu virus which killed an 11 year-old girl from Cambodia has evolved to infect humans better.

UK health officials started Covid-style modelling predict the impact of a bird flu outbreak, amid fears the bug could spark a pandemic.

Bird flu is most commonly a disease that affects wild and domestic birds. However, the virus can also be passed to humans.

The H5N1 strain already has a fatality rate of around 50 per cent among people.

The World Health Organization warns that of the 873 human H5N1 cases reported over the last two decades, just over half (458) have been fatal.

However, there has been no evidence to suggest that the virus can spread easily from one person to another.

Recent weeks have seen fears rise due to an “unprecedented” current epidemic among mammals and birds.

Experts are concerned that the viral spread is so large it could allow the virus to evolve more rapidly, which would increase the spread of H5N1 in people.

In preparation, the UK Health Security Agency produced Covid-style modelling to predict what might happen if the bug began transmitting from human-to-human.

This Government agency is currently also investigating the possibility of creating bird flu lateral flow testing.

3