China has officially reported its first human case of H10N3 bird flu.
On Tuesday, the National Health Commission (NHC) confirmed a 41-year-old man in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu as the first case of infection of the H10N3 strain of bird flu, Reuters reports.
The man lives in Zhenjiang, and on April 28, he was taken to a hospital after developing a fever as well as other symptoms, according to a statement released by the NHC. Doctors diagnosed the man with having H10N3 avian influenza virus on May 28. No details have been released about how the man became infected with the virus.
Reuters reports the man is in stable condition and may be discharged from the hospital. However, physicians will reportedly be keeping a close eye on him. No other cases have been found or confirmed. NHC said the virus is often found in poultry, adding that it is a low pathogenic or less severe strain of the virus. They claim that the potential for it to spread is very low.
The strain is “not a very common virus,” said Filip Claes, regional laboratory coordinator of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases at the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.
