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Russian authorities have reported the first known cases of an avian flu virus called H5N8 spreading from poultry to humans, according to reports.
Seven workers at a poultry factory were infected with virus in December 2020, following an epidemic among flocks of birds, Anna Popova, head of the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, told a briefing Saturday February 20 press, according to CNN. Scientists at the National Vector Institute isolated the virus strains from infected workers, Popova said.
Russia reported the seven cases to the World Health Organization, noting that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, Popova said. This means that the influenza virus jumped from infection birds in people, but it did not continue to spread from man to man.
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“If confirmed, this would be the first time H5N8 has infected people,” a WHO spokesperson said in a statement, CNN reported. Several strains of avian influenza are known to infect humans, including H5N1, H7N9 and H9N2, Reuters reported; but these strains have never caused lasting human-to-human transmission, Previously reported Live Science.
People infected with the H5N8 virus “were asymptomatic and no human-to-human transmission was reported,” the WHO spokesperson confirmed, according to Reuters.
Since the virus does not seem to pass from person to person, it “gives us all, the whole world, time to prepare for possible mutations and to react in an adequate and timely manner”, if human-to-human transmission was expected to occur in the future, Popova said at the briefing, according to BBC News.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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