A 33-year-old girl has died three weeks after catching a uncommon type of chicken flu in China.
The Chinese girl contracted the H5N6 pressure within the metropolis of Bazhong, Sichuan, shortly after visiting a neighborhood poultry market, in keeping with native reviews.
She was admitted to hospital on October 22 and died from the sickness on November 14.
Her demise has solely simply been reported this week.
This specific pressure has contaminated a lot of folks in China in recent years, which has raised concern amongst some specialists.
Between 2014 and December 16 this yr, 88 human circumstances of avian influenza A(H5N6) have been reported worldwide.
Of these, 87 have been in mainland China, in keeping with a report launched on Tuesday by Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection.
‘Sporadic human cases are not unexpected,’ a World Health Organisation (WHO) official mentioned.
‘The rise in the number of reported human cases of an H5N6 infection may reflect the continued circulation of the virus in birds, and enhanced surveillance system and diagnostic capacity as a direct outcome of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.’
According to the WHO, there’s a 39% mortality charge for H5N6 – a determine that has been steadily rising because the onset of the Covid pandemic.
In the previous 4 years, the pressure has solely been detected in Asia, the WOAH database confirmed, with the latest outbreak on a poultry farm within the Philippines in January.
The NHS mentioned that whereas H5N6 doesn’t infect folks simply or unfold from human to human, ‘several people have been infected around the world, leading to a number of deaths’.
It says chicken flu is unfold by shut contact with an contaminated chicken, lifeless or alive, which incorporates touching contaminated birds, droppings or bedding, or killing or getting ready contaminated poultry for cooking.
NHS recommendation says: ‘Markets where live birds are sold can also be a source of bird flu. Avoid visiting these markets if you’re travelling to nations which have had an outbreak of chicken flu.’
The important signs of chicken flu can seem ‘very quickly’, in keeping with the NHS and embody:
- a really excessive temperature or feeling scorching or shivery
- aching muscle mass
- headache
- a cough or shortness of breath
Other early signs can also embody:
- diarrhoea
- illness
- abdomen ache
- chest ache
- bleeding from the nostril and gums
- conjunctivitis
Bird flu has been discovered within the UK this yr with two testing constructive for the virus again in July, however the H5N6 has to this point been contained to Asian nations.
Experts beforehand mentioned {that a} human chicken flu pandemic within the UK is ‘unlikely but not impossible’.
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