Russia has now recorded its first human case of H5N8 bird flu. Technically, this is also the world's first cases of H5N8 avian influenza.
World's bird flu cases
A worker disinfects chickens transported to a chicken slaughtering factory on May 4, 2006 in Xining of Qinghai Province, China. Surveillance has been stepped up in Qinghai Province following the discovery of a dead wild goose carrying the bird flu virus in Gangcha County. The Ministry of Agriculture said on April 30 that the dead bar-headed goose found in the county tested positive for the H5N1 strain, the highly contagious strain that has killed 12 people in China. Qinghai is known as a stopping point for migrating birds and the virus killed thousands of bar-headed geese at a nature reserve in the region in 2005, according to state media. )
Anna Popova, head of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said on Saturday, that Russia registered the first case of a strain of bird flu virus named AH5N8 being passed from birds to humans.
It was already reported back to the World Health Organization (WHO), according to the official.
Though the virus was reportedly confirmed in humans, there are still no reports saying that this virus could transfer from humans to humans.
"It is not transmitted from person to person. But only time will tell how soon future mutations will allow it to overcome this barrier," Popova said.
The discovery of this strain now "gives us all, the whole world, time to prepare for possible mutations and the possibility to react in a timely way and develop test systems and vaccines."
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What's a bird flu?
DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) workers clear up dead turkey carcasses at Redgrave Park Farm where around 2,600 birds, including ducks and geese, are being slaughtered following the confirmed outbreak of the H5 strain of bird flu, on November 13, 2007 in Redgrave, Suffolk, near Diss, Norfolk, England. A 3km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone has been established around the infected premises. Following further tests, DEFRA has announced at a press conference that this particular virus does contain the highly infectious H5N1 substrain of Aviation Influenza (the fourth outbreak H5N1 in the UK this year), which in rare cases can spread to other species, including humans.
Avian influenza, according to US CDC, is very contagious and deadly among birds. However, as explained, there are no information yet discovered that the virus could be transfered from humans to humans.
However, WHO noted that "Though human infections with A(H5) viruses are rare and generally occur in individuals exposed to sick or dead infected birds (or their environments), they can lead to severe illness or death in humans."
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