The person, who was not named, lived in Mexico (Picture: Reuters)
A person has died after contracting a strain of bird flu never confirmed in humans before, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.
The virus was detected in a 59-year-old in Mexico City, Mexico, who was taken to hospital after developing a fever, shortness of breath and diarrhoea on April 17.
They died just one week later.
‘This is the first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with an influenza A(H5N2) virus reported globally,’ WHO said in a report, referring to the H5N2 strain of the virus sweeping poultry and dairy farms.
‘Based on available information, WHO assesses the current risk to the general population posed by this virus as low,’ the UN health agency added.
The victim had no history of exposure to poultry or other animals, WHO said, and had several underlying medical conditions.
H5N2 has killed some 50,500,000 birds (Picture: Reuters)
They had already been bedridden for three weeks before the onset of avian flu symptoms.
Health officials were first notified of a human infection on May 23.
H5N2 is one of several deadly strains of avian influenza, otherwise called bird flu, that have raised concerns among health officials and farmers.
H5N2 is among the most virulent, having been known to leap from one or two birds to entire flocks within 24 to 48 hours. Officials estimate it has killed 10s of millions of birds in the US alone, with some due to culling and other mass killing methods.
The strain had recently been detected in poultry in Mexico.
A different bird flu strain known as H5N1 has been a top concern for officials given that mutations acquired last year allow it to jump from birds to cows.
Bird flu: the lowdown
It is usually caught by close contact with infected birds
You can’t catch bird flu by eating fully cooked poultry or eggs, even in areas with an outbreak of bird flu
There is no bird flu vaccine
Bird flu has also been found in foxes, otters, dolphins, porpoises, skunks and a polar bear
People catching bird flu isn’t something to be too shocked about, the agency said.
‘Whenever avian influenza viruses are circulating in poultry, there is a risk for infection and small clusters of human cases due to exposure to infected poultry or contaminated environments,’ the report said.
‘Therefore, sporadic human cases are not unexpected.’
No further human cases of infection with H5N2 tied to this fatality have been recorded and the ‘current likelihood of sustained human-to-human spread is low’.
‘Based on the available information, WHO assesses the current risk to the general population posed by this virus to be low,’ the report said.
This is a developing news story, more to follow soon… Check back shortly for further updates.
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