Beijing, Reuters. Cases of human bird flu are also increasing rapidly in China amid the havoc of Corona virus.
The increase in the number of infected people has raised the concern of experts.They believe that faster-changing variants than before have increased the risk of infectiousness in people.
China has reported 21 cases of the H5N6 type of avian influenza to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2021. This is four times more than last year. However, this number is very small compared to the hundreds of people infected with H7N9 in 2017. Then at least six people also died of infection.
Professor Thijs Kuiken at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam said: ‘The increase in human bird flu cases in China this year is a matter of concern.
This virus causes a high mortality rate. The WHO said that most cases were spread through contact with poultry and there are currently no confirmed human-to-human transmissions.
No outbreak of H5N6 in poultry has been reported in China since February 2020. China is the largest poultry producer in the world. The highest number of H5N6 infections has been seen in southwestern Sichuan province.
Apart from this, cases have also been reported in Chongqing and Guangxi as well as Guangdong, Anhui and Hunan provinces. A September report by China’s CDC said infections were found in four people in Sichuan who had been in contact with dead birds.
