It is a world first. China on Tuesday reported a case of H10N03 avian influenza, a disease commonly found in birds, the health ministry said. Something to worry about beyond the Chinese borders? We take stock.
Who has been infected?
The infected patient is 41 years old and is from Zhenjiang City in the east of the country. He was hospitalized on April 28 with a fever. Doctors concluded a month later that he had the disease, the health ministry said, adding that the patient should be discharged from hospital soon. No details were provided on the circumstances of its contamination.
Should we fear an epidemic?
By announcing this first case of avian influenza H10N03 in humans, the Chinese health authorities assured that “the risk of a large-scale spread in humans”, namely the probability of an epidemic, is “extremely low. “.
Jiangsu provincial health authorities have tested all contact cases of the patient infected with this strain but have not detected any person with the virus so far. Statements confirmed by the World Health Organization, questioned on this subject by the British press agency Reuters :
No other cases were detected during the emergency surveillance carried out among the local population. For now, nothing indicates that there could be transmission from human to human
WHO
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Is this strain dangerous?
Avian influenza or fowl plague, also called bird flu, is a virus that infects wild and domestic birds. More or less pathogenic, it is classified according to the type of two of its surface proteins (144 possible combinations), hence many different names: H5N1, H7N9, H5N2, H5N8 … and H10N03.
The latter strain is “not very widespread,” Filip Claes, coordinator of the Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases for Asia and the Pacific, an organization dependent on FAO, told Reutrers. Only 160 isolated cases of H10N03 have been detected over 40 years, mainly in ducks in Asia and North America.
How is the virus transmitted?
The virus, which is particularly resistant in winter, can be spread in farms through direct contact with secretions or through food and water.
It should be noted that no case of human contamination by the consumption of meat or eggs has so far been detected. According to the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA), the infectious properties of viruses are in fact destroyed very quickly at temperatures above 60 ° C. Moreover, in the event of ingestion of contaminated raw meat or eggs, this virus would be destroyed by the acidity of the gastric fluid.
The very rare cases of transmission to humans have occurred by air.
Precedents of avian influenza in humans, but rare
Other strains of avian flu, H5N1 (between 2003 and 2011), H7N9 (since 2013), and H5N6 (since 2014), have already given rise to contamination in Asia through direct contact with infected poultry. But cases of human-to-human transmission followed by epidemics remain very rare, such as the WHO reminded us this winter.
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H7N9 has still infected 1,668 people and killed 616 people since 2013, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. H5N1 had meanwhile spread to more than 860 people, killing more than 450.
More recently, in December 2020, 7 cases of the H5N8 virus were detected in Russia. No deaths were to be deplored.
As long as avian influenza viruses circulate on farms, sporadic infections in humans are not surprising. It reminds us that the threat of the flu is still there.
WHO to Reuters
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An epidemic in France since the winter
After outbreaks appeared in Russia and Kazakhstan last summer, the bird flu epidemic caused by the H5N8 strain spread to France via migratory birds this winter. The epizootic has resulted in the slaughter of millions of poultry, mainly ducks.
The epidemic seems to have slowed down in recent weeks, as the French Ministry of Agriculture said in a press release on Tuesday: “For a month, no new outbreak has been detected in breeding or farmyard in France nor any case in wildlife since May 3, “he says. As of May 28, the level of risk associated with this H5N8 strain.
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