rapormerah.co – Recently, China’s National Health Commission reported that a 4-year-old boy living in Henan Province tested positive for H3N8 bird flu after being hospitalized in early April. One of the symptoms experienced by this child is fever. It is known that H3N8 has been circulating since 2002 after the first time it was present in North American waterfowl. This type of bird flu has infected several animals including dogs, horses, and including seals, but at that time it had never been detected in humans.
“(This little boy) was infected directly from birds and the strain was not found to have the ability to effectively infect humans,” he said NHC, as reported by AFP. Where, according to the test results, people who have been in close contact with this small child have not found any signs of abnormality. However, China’s National Health Commission immediately appealed to the public to keep their distance from sick or dead birds.
In a statement, the NHC itself said that the boy’s family kept a chicken at his residence in a wild duck-dwelling area. Fortunately, the Chinese Health Authority said that the risk of catching the H3N8 bird flu was low for it to spread widely among people. Human infection from zoonoses or rather influenza transmitted through animals is obtained through direct contact with exposed animals, whether the environment has been contaminated.
Chinese authorities have also warned that they should seek medicine immediately when fever and respiratory symptoms appear. Cases of bird flu so far have occurred mainly in wild birds and poultry. “Human infections from zoonoses and influenza are transmitted through animals,” the World Health Organization said AFP. “Primarily acquired through direct contact with infected animals,” continued the World Health Organization.
“Whether the environment is infected, it doesn’t produce efficient transmission of the virus between people,” he concluded, as quoted from AFP. Cases of human-to-human transmission are rare, avian influenza strains H51 and H7N9, which were detected in 1997 and 2003 respectively. Accounts for the vast majority of cases of human disease caused by avian influenza, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.
In 2012, H3N8 was blamed for the deaths of more than 160 seals off the northeast coast of the United States after causing deadly pneumonia in animals. In 2021 ago, the Chinese government informed that there was one case of transmission of the H5N6 bird flu virus in humans which occurred in Sichuan Province on Thursday, July 15, 2021 ago. This case occurred in a 55-year-old man with H5N6 who lived in Bazhong City and was immediately rushed to the hospital.
The man is said to have developed symptoms of H5N6 around June 30 and was rushed to the hospital on July 4. His condition was critical at that time, suffering from symptoms of H5N6 due to having made contact with poultry around his residence. As a result of this case that had happened in 2021 ago, the Bazhog authorities immediately destroyed a flock of poultry in the residential area of a man suffering from H5N6 bird flu. This is the 32nd human case of H5N6 infection reported by China since 2014.
Experts themselves analyze that H5N6 infection is a rare case. Therefore, the risk of an epidemic due to infection is very small. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza or known as bird flu is a type of disease caused by type A influenza virus that attacks birds. This virus itself has a natural host in wild birds. Bird flu itself does not make these wild animals sick, but it can make domestic birds such as ducks and chickens sick. It can even die because it has been infected, this disease is transmitted from bird to bird. However, it can also be transmitted to humans, although the risk is very small. And now China has found another case of H3N8 bird flu.
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