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A man was hospitalized in southwest China after contracting the H5N6 strain of bird flu, Chinese state media reported Thursday, recalling that the world is teeming with influenza viruses even during a coronavirus pandemic .
The man, 55, was hospitalized in Bazhong, a town in southwestern Sichuan Province, after developing a fever and testing positive for the virus on July 6, China Global Television reported. Network.
Local authorities had “activated an emergency response and sterilized the area,” the broadcaster said in a brief report in English. He cited anonymous experts as saying the risk of large-scale transmission between humans was low. The report did not provide further details or indicate whether the man handled poultry as part of his job.
The H5N6 virus is one of many potentially dangerous versions of the flu that scientists have reported over the years in flocks of poultry or in captured or dead wild birds. It was first detected eight years ago in Laos, then spread to China and other countries.
As of last week, 32 confirmed cases of human infection with the H5N6 virus and 19 deaths were reported to the World Health Organization in Asia since 2014, according to the agency. The last human case before that from Sichuan province had an onset date of May 13.
Because influenza viruses mutate a lot in nature, scientists try to monitor them closely for signs that they are becoming more contagious or deadly. Last year in China, for example, a team of scientists reported that a new strain of the H1N1 swine flu virus was spreading silently among workers in the country’s pig farms and should be controlled “urgently” to avoid another pandemic, although the strain had not caused disease in the people it infected.
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