Shillong, April 12: The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that a Chinese woman has become the first person to die from a type of bird flu that is uncommon in humans, although the strain does not seem to transmit between people.
The WHO said in a statement said that the 56-year-old lady from the southern province of Guangdong was the third individual to have been infected with the H3N8 subtype of avian influenza.
The first two cases were recorded last year, and all of the cases have been in China.
Last month, the Guangdong Provincial Institute for Disease Control and Prevention announced the third infection, although it made no mention of the woman’s death.
The patient had a history of exposure to live poultry as well as other underlying illnesses, according to the WHO.
In China, where avian flu viruses are continuously spread across vast populations of domestic poultry and wild birds, sporadic infections in people with bird flu are quite prevalent.
H3N8 is widespread in birds, where it rarely manifests as an illness despite being rare in humans. Infected mammals include other mammals.
WHO in a statement said, “Based on available information, it appears that this virus does not have the ability to spread easily from person to person, and therefore the risk of it spreading among humans at the national, regional, and international levels is considered to be low”.