Russia reports 7 human H5N8 avian influenza cases

By NewsDesk  @bactiman63

Russian officials are reporting human infections with the A(H5N8) bird flu virus, according to a Russian News Agency TASS news report.

The virus infected workers of a poultry farm in southern Russia, where an outbreak was recorded among the birds in December, Head of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing Anna Popova said at a briefing today.

The workers did not suffer any serious health consequences, she added.

“Information about the world’s first case of transmission of the avian flu (H5N8) to humans has already been sent to the World Health Organization,”, Popova said.

“The Vector Center of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing has already added to the international GISAID database the data of a whole genome sequencing of the А(H5N8) virus with those mutations that allowed it to cross the interspecies barrier,” she added.

“So far we can see that the novel agent of the A(H5N8) bird flu is capable of transmission from birds to humans – it crossed the interspecies barrier. Yet as of today, this version of a flu virus is not transmitted from human to human,” she said.

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