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The World Health Organization said on Friday that there is a low risk of human-to-human spread of the H5N8 strain of bird flu, following a case of human transmission of the virus on February 20 in Russia.
The WHO statement comes after seven workers became infected at a poultry plant in Astrakhan, near the Volga River. According to Russian state media, the workers felt slightly ill with a sore throat.
“The seven people … now feel good,” said Anna Popova, director of Russia’s consumer health watchdog.
He added that appropriate measures were quickly taken to stop the spread of the virus and that there were no signs of human-to-human transmission.
“All close contacts for these cases were clinically monitored and no one showed signs of clinical disease,” Popova said.
According to the WHO, outbreaks of the same strain in poultry or wild birds were reported last year in Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Russia. .
Bird flu generally only affects birds and there are multiple strains of bird flu.
A separate strain, H1N1, spread around the world among humans in 2009 and 2010, leading the WHO to declare it an influenza pandemic. The outbreak was mild in humans but deadly in poultry.
Most cases of human infection come from contact with infected poultry or surfaces contaminated with saliva, nasal secretions, or feces from infected birds.
