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Russia notified WHO first case of H5N8 bird flu transmitted from birds to humans
The head of Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said scientists from the Vektor lab had isolated the genetic material of the strain from seven workers on a poultry farm.
Russia announced on Saturday that its scientists had detected the world’s first case of transmission of the H5N8 strain of bird flu from birds to humans and had alerted the World Health Organization.
In televised remarks, the head of Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said scientists from the Vektor lab had isolated genetic material from the strain from seven workers at a poultry farm in southern Russia, where it recorded an outbreak among birds in December.
The workers suffered no serious health consequences, he added. They are believed to have contracted the virus from poultry on the farm.
?? Information on the world’s first case of avian flu transmission [H5N8] to humans has already been sent to the World Health Organization, ?? Popova said.
There are different subtypes of avian influenza viruses. While the highly contagious strain H5N8 is lethal to birds, it has never before been reported to have spread to humans.
Popova praised “the important scientific discovery.” saying “time will tell” if the virus can continue to mutate.
“The discovery of these mutations when the virus has not yet acquired the ability to transmit from human to human gives us all, the entire world, time to prepare for possible mutations and react in an appropriate and timely manner.” Popova said.
The WHO confirmed on Saturday that Russia had notified it.
WHO stressed that Russian workers were asymptomatic and that no person-to-person transmission had been reported.
People can be infected with avian and swine influenza viruses, such as avian flu subtypes A (H5N1) and A (H7N9) and swine flu subtypes such as A (H1N1).
According to the WHO, people generally become infected through direct contact with animals or contaminated environments, and there is no sustained human-to-human transmission.
Russia’s Vektor State Center for Virology and Biotechnology, which detected transmission to workers on poultry farms, also developed one of the country’s several coronavirus vaccines. In the Soviet era, the laboratory, located in Koltsovo on the outskirts of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, conducted secret research on biological weapons and still stores viruses ranging from Ebola to smallpox.
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