Bird flu outbreak: China reports first human case with H10N3

Beijing: China's National Health Commission said on Tuesday that the country has reported the first case of a human infection with the H10N3 strain of bird flu has been reported from the country's eastern Jiangsu province. .

The patient, a 41-year-old man from Zhenjiang city, is currently in a stable condition and meets discharge standards, the state-run CGTN TV reported.

Health authorities played down the outbreak, saying the case was a sporadic virus transmission from poultry to humans, and the risk of causing a pandemic was extremely low.

The patient was diagnosed as having the H10N3 avian influenza virus on May 28, National Health Commission said in a statement without elaborating on how the man had got infected with the virus.

No other cases of human infection with H10N3 have previously been reported globally, it said.

H10N3 is a low pathogenic or relatively less severe strain of the virus in poultry and the risk of it spreading on a large scale is very low.

There are many different strains of avian influenza in China and some sporadically infect people, generally those working with poultry.

H5N8 is a subtype of the Influenza A virus (also known as the bird flu virus). While H5N8 only presents a low risk to humans, it is highly lethal to wild birds and poultry.

In April, a highly pathogenic H5N6 avian flu was found in wild birds in northeast China's Shenyang city.

(Based on PTI input with minor edits)