Scientists’ warning after bird flu death
Print Edition
The death of a woman in China from a strain of bird flu previously unknown in humans is a reminder of the ever-present potential pandemic threat from mutating animal viruses, scientists said yesterday.
The H10N8 strain has so far infected only two people — a fatal case in a 73-year-old and another in a woman who is critically ill. But the fact it has jumped from birds to humans is an important warning, scientists said.
“We should always be worried when viruses cross the species barrier from birds or animals to humans, as it is very unlikely that we will have prior immunity to protect us,” said Jeremy Farrar, director of UK-based health charity the Wellcome Trust and an expert on flu.
“We should be especially worried when those viruses show characteristics that suggest they have the capacity to replicate easily or to be virulent or resistant to drugs. This virus ticks several of these boxes and therefore is a cause for concern.”
Chinese authorities last week confirmed the second human case of H10N8 which was reported for the first time in humans in December.
It has emerged as another new and often fatal strain of bird flu, H7N9, has infected nearly 300 people in China killing around 60 of them. Four provincial regions reported a total of 11 cases of H7N9 yesterday, including four in Guangdong and four in Zhejiang.
Chinese scientists writing in The Lancet medical journal who conducted a genetic analysis on samples of the H10N8 virus from the woman who died said it was a new genetic reassortment of other strains of bird flu viruses, including one called H9N2 that is relatively well known in poultry in China.
Somewhat worryingly, the virus — like H7N9 — has also evolved “some genetic characteristics that may allow it to replicate efficiently in humans,” said Shu Yuelong of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing.
According to the scientists’ study of her case, the 73-year-old victim, from the eastern city of Nanchang, was admitted to hospital with fever and severe pneumonia on November 30.
Despite being treated with antibiotic and antivirals, she deteriorated rapidly, developed multiple organ failure and died nine days after her symptoms first started.
Investigations found the woman had been at a live poultry market a few days before becoming infected. But no H10N8 virus was found in samples collected from the market, so the source of the infection remains unknown.
Liu Mingbin from Nanchang City Center for Disease Control and Prevention added that the emergence of a second human case of H10N8 in a 55-year-old woman “is of great concern because it reveals that the H10N8 virus has continued to circulate and may cause more human infections in future.”
John McCauley, head of the WHO Collaborating Center for Influenza at Britain’s National Institute for Medical Research, said the emergence of H10N8 and of H7N9 “reminds us to be aware of human infections from animal influenza viruses.”
But he said the risk of the H10N8 virus spreading from person to person “seems low since the H10N8 virus is not expected to be transmitted well between humans.”
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