A person has died in Mexico, the world’s first confirmed case of infection with the H5N2 variant of bird flu, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.
The WHO said the patient died on April 24 after suffering from fever, shortness of breath, diarrhoea and nausea, but he “had no history of exposure to poultry or other animals” and “had multiple underlying medical conditions”.
Mexican health authorities reported a confirmed case of human infection with the virus to the UN health body on May 23, when a 59-year-old man was admitted to hospital in Mexico City.
The World Health Organization said the case was “the first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with an influenza A (H5N2) virus reported globally”.
The World Health Organisation said the source of exposure to the virus was unknown, although H5N2 cases had been reported in poultry in the country.
According to the UN health body, H5N2 cases affected poultry in the state of Michoacan in March, and other outbreaks were identified in the state of Mexico.
But it said it was still impossible to establish a link between the human cases and poultry infections, and the risk to people was estimated to be “low”.
A different strain of bird flu, H5N1, has been spreading in dairy cow herds in the United States for several weeks, and a few cases have also been reported in humans.
But officials said none of these cases were human-to-human infections, but rather the disease spread from cattle to people.
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Published: June 06, 2024, 08:01 AM IST
