Russia has confirmed the world’s first human infection with the bird flu virus



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“Today I want to announce an important scientific discovery made by scientists from the Vektor Research Center in Rospotrebnadzor: the first case of human infection with the … bird virus (H5N8) has been confirmed in the laboratory,” Popova told Rossija 24 TV .

He added that the infection was detected in seven people who worked on a poultry farm in southern Russia, where an outbreak of bird flu was recorded last December.

According to A. Popova, the infection was mild and the risk “was minimized; this situation has not developed further. “People who get sick feel fine, the official added.

“The virus is capable of spreading from birds to humans, overcoming the interspecific barrier. But for now [kiek žinoma] this variant does not infect other people with the flu virus. “How quickly will they allow new mutations to overcome this barrier? Time will tell,” said A. Popova.

Because these infections were identified relatively early, this gives time to prepare for “possible mutations” that could convert the pathogen from human to human and to develop test systems and vaccines, said the director of Rospotrebnadzor.

“Data on the first human infection with the novel influenza A (H5N8) has been transmitted to the WHO (World Health Organization). This was done a few days ago, as soon as we were completely convinced [tyrimų] results. “The results of the complete genome sequence of the H5N8 virus have been published in the Vektor GISAID international database,” said A. Popova.

In November, Vektor reported that the H5N8 influenza virus was infected in poultry and wild birds in 15 regions of Russia. There have been no known cases of this virus in humans before.

According to the WHO, human cases of other strains of avian influenza A (H5N1), A (H7N9) and A (H9N2) have been reported, as well as swine influenza viruses of subtypes A (H1N1), A (H1N2) and A ( H3N2).



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