China’s National Health Commission (NHC) announced last June 1 that the world’s first known human case of the H10N3 strain of the avian influenza has been recorded. The patient, a 41-year-old man from the city of Zhenjiang, developed a fever last April 23, then went to a nearby hospital for treatment on April 28. By May 28, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) performed a genetic analysis on samples obtained from the patient and found that he indeed was infected with the H10N3 strain of the avian influenza virus. Upon contact tracing through the patient’s relatives and close contacts, officials determined that no further additional cases of the unique strain of influenza were discovered. The patient in question is now also in stable condition and is set to be discharged from the hospital as of the time of writing of this article. The CCDC did not specify when or how the man was infected with the specific avian influenza strain from a bird, but according to them there’s little chance of widespread virus spreading.
The H10N3 strain of avian influenza usually causes mild disease in birds. Said Filip Claes, regional laboratory coordinator of the United Nations Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the H10N3 strain itself is pretty uncommon in its original avian hosts, with only 160 samples obtained from wild birds and waterfowl between the late 1970s and 2018. The strain has also yet to be detected in chickens. It should be noted, however, that this isn’t the first time this year that an avian influenza virus strain jumped from birds to humans; earlier this year, Russian officials reported an H5N8 strain outbreak, infecting seven workers at a poultry plant. However, just like the H10N3 strain, no evidence of human-to-human transmission was found.
According to Claes, scientists will still need to thoroughly analyze the samples obtained from the patient to truly determine the similarities and differences compared to H10N3 samples obtained in the past. Also, as mentioned before by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), avian influenza viruses that jump from birds to humans don’t usually spread between humans, resulting in “limited, inefficient, and [un]sustained” transmission. There have been cases, however, where avian influenza viruses sparked major concern; the last one to do so was the H7N9 strain, which resulted in the deaths of over 300 people back in 2016 and 2017. That avian influenza outbreak had a case fatality rate of about 40%, according to a 2016 issue of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Bibliography
- Gu, H., & Patton, D. (2021, June 2). China reports first human case of H10N3 bird flu. Reuters. Retrieved June 2, 2021, from https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/china-reports-human-case-h10n3-bird-flu-2021-06-01/
- Lanese, N. (2021, June 2). China reports first known human case of H10N3 bird flu. LiveScience. Retrieved June 2, 2021, from https://www.livescience.com/first-human-case-bird-flu-h10n3.html
