Agency Report
The World Health Organisation, on Friday, revealed that a man infected with H5N2 bird flu, the first confirmed human infection with the strain, died from multiple factors.
WHO added that investigations were ongoing.
WHO announced on Wednesday that the first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with the H5N2 avian influenza virus had been reported from Mexico.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s health ministry said the 59-year-old man had “a history of chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes (and) long-standing systemic arterial hypertension”.
He had been bedridden for three weeks prior to the onset of acute symptoms, developing fever, shortness of breath, diarrhoea, nausea and general malaise on April 17.
He was taken to a hospital in Mexico City on April 24 and died later that day.
“The death is a multi-factorial death, not a death attributable to H5N2,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a media briefing in Geneva on Friday.
“The patient came to the hospital after weeks of multi-factorial background of multi other diseases.”
His body was subsequently routinely tested for flu and other viruses, and H5N2 was detected, Lindmeier said.
Seventeen contacts of the case in the hospital were identified and they all tested negative for influenza.
In the man’s place of residence, 12 contacts in the weeks beforehand were identified, and they likewise tested negative.
“Investigations are ongoing. Serology is ongoing. That means the blood testing of contacts to see if there was any possible earlier infection,” said Lindmeier.
“At this point in time, as it is multi-factorial, it’s a multi-factorial death. But the infection of H5N2 is being investigated to see whether he was infected by somebody visiting or by any contact with any animals before.”
The WHO said on Wednesday the source of exposure to the virus was currently unknown, though H5N2 viruses have been reported in poultry in Mexico.
Based on available information, the United Nations’ health agency assesses the current risk to the general population posed by the virus as low.
‘Low food risk’
Senior Food Safety Officer at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization Markus Lipp, explained why the risk of contracting avian influenza through eating poultry was “negligibly low”.
He said, “In all the hundred years of avian influenza… there has not been any demonstrated food-borne transmission,” he told the briefing, via video link from the FAO’s headquarters in Rome.
“Animal handlers, of course, who are in extremely close contact with animals may get an infection but it’s an occupational risk. It’s not a food-borne transmission.
“Humans do not have avian influenza receptors in their gastrointestinal tract, contrary to certain animal species, as far as we know. So there is a very slim likelihood, just from that perspective.”
Of all the food safety risks when eating poultry, “probably the lowest risk is connected to avian influenza. There are many other microbiological risks that are more likely to cause harm to consumers if food is inadequately prepared,” he said.
AFP
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