H3N8 bird flu claims its first human with the death of a woman in China

Exposing the Big Game's avatarExposing the Big Game

Experts think the victim contracted the lethal virus after a visit to a wet market where live birds were sold

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/bird-flu-h3n8-death-china/

BySarah Newey,GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY CORRESPONDENT,IN BANGKOK11 April 2023 • 4:27pm

Chickens sit in cages at a farm
Scientists tracing the woman’s exposure collected samples positive for H3N8 at a wet marketCREDIT: Mariana Nedelcu/REUTERS

A 56-year-old woman in China has died after contracting H3N8 bird flu, the first known fatality in a human from this strain of avian influenza.

While H3N8 is “one of the most frequently found” subtypes of flu found in birds, the woman is only the third person known to have caught the virus and the first to have died.

Two young boys were infected with the same virus in unrelated cases in China last year, but both survived.

According to a World Health Organizationreport, the woman developed symptoms in late February and died on March 16. She had “multiple…

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