China Confirms Country’s First Human Case of H3N8 Bird Flu Strain
The infection comes as avian flu rates hit record highs across the world, drawing attention to the desperate need for food system change.
Credit: Amy Jones/Moving Animals
Health officials have reported the world’s first known human case of H3N8 avian flu in China. A four-year-old boy in the Henan province has been infected with the avian influenza strain after being in contact with chickens and crows near his home, according to China’s National Health Commission.
Commonly known as bird flu, avian influenza is a highly contagious and deadly virus that infects chickens, ducks, turkeys, and wild birds, and spreads through their saliva, mucus, and feces. Some strains of bird flu, such as H5N1, H7N9, H5N6 and now H5N8, have infected humans, but this is very rare, with fewer than 500 bird flu deaths reported to the World Health Organization since 1997.
“We often see a virus spread to a human and then not spread any further so a single case is not a cause of great concern,” Sir Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health, University of Oxford, told The Guardian.
“There is no reason to think it will go any further,” said Prof Paul Digard from the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, adding that none of the boy's close contacts had been infected with the strain.
Although officials have stated that the risk to public health from bird flu is low, it is possible for humans to contract the disease when droplets or dust particles in the air are breathed in, or when a person touches something that has the virus on it then touches their mouth, eyes or nose, according to the CDC. When humans are infected with the virus, there can be grave consequences - the fatality rate is around 60 percent.
Alongside fellow disease experts, Horby noted that in light of the record-breaking bird flu outbreaks that have hit the United States, United Kingdom and Europe this year, there is an increased chance that avian viruses could mix, mutute, and infect human populations.
“I do generally believe we need to be increasing influence surveillance globally quite concertedly right now. Apart from H3N8, we have seen a number of other new spillover events of influenza from poultry to people over recent years including H5N8 in Russia and H7N9 and H10N3 in China,” said Alexandra Phelan, assistant professor at the centre for global health science and security at Georgetown University.
Record highs across the world
The discovery of the first H3N8 human case comes as other strains of avian flu wreak havoc on bird populations around the world, with more than 53 million chickens, turkeys, and other fowl culled as part of efforts to stop the spread of the virus.
In the U.S., at least 251 poultry flocks have already contracted the highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza A variety in the worst avian flu outbreak in the country in seven years - over 35.5 million birds, from egg-laying hens to turkeys, have been affected by the avian influenza.
More than 22 million birds lost their lives or been destroyed due to this devastating disease, according to the latest figures, with the majority located in Iowa, the biggest egg producer in the U.S.
Birds who contract the infection tend to exhibit symptoms, such as depression, paralysis, coughing, and swelling of the eyes. When the virus is detected on a farm, officials will suffocate flocks en masse with foam or by filling the barns with carbon dioxide.
Just recently, Iowa-based egg factory, Rembrandt, owned by billionaire Glen Taylor, roasted 5.3 million chickens alive as part of its avian flu cull. They were killed using a system called ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+) in which air is closed off to the barns and heat pumped in until the temperature rises above 104F (40C), as reported by Tom Cullen of the Iowa newspaper the Storm Lake Times.
“They cooked those birds alive,” said one of the Rembrandt workers involved in the culling.
Animal rights group, Animal Outlook, recently revealed experiments by North Carolina State University into the effects of VSD+ on chickens. Records uncovered that VSD+ causes “extreme suffering” to the hens as they “writhe, gasp, pant, stagger and even throw themselves against the walls of their confinement in a desperate attempt to escape”.
“Eventually the birds collapse and, finally, die from heat and suffocation,” the group said.
According to data from the WHO, there have been 863 cases of H5N1 infection in humans globally from January 2003-March 2022, with 455 of those cases being fatal. The UK confirmed a human infection of H5N1 in January of this year.
From January 2003 to March 2022, more than 860 infections of H5N1 have been confirmed in humans, with over 450 cases being fatal. In 2021, the UK reported a human case of infection, while just this weekend, a Colorado inmate became the first person in the U.S. to test positive for bird flu.
In response to China’s first human case of the H3N8 bird flu strain, UK-based animal advocacy organization Viva! called for an end of factory farming “before it ends us”.
“Factory farms provide an ideal breeding ground for a mutating virus,” they said in a press release. “Viva! have been into these farms and exposed the horrific conditions chickens and pigs are forced to endure during their short lives. Over one billion chickens are slaughtered for their meat in the UK every year and around 95% are intensively reared on factory farms. We are handing viruses the perfect opportunity to mutate into more deadly forms.”
Solutions for change
As Viva! notes, food system change is needed now more than ever before. Rather than continuing to rely on the mass slaughter and consumption of animals, and causing unbearable animal suffering and risking new infectious diseases, we have the opportunity to transform the current system into something safer, healthier and more ecological.
From plant-based cheeses to cultivated meats, technology is revolutionizing food and agriculture production. You can learn more about the game-changers - the people leading the way toward a world without factory farms and slaughterhouses - with our future of food podcast episodes here.
With animals, people, and the planet in desperate need of solutions for change, what we eat matters now more than ever. And we all have a role to play in transforming the current food system. Sign up for our free, 7-day challenge here to learn how to live in line with your animal-loving values.
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