Bird flu: Russia reports first case of transmission of H5N8 to humans

The H5N8 virus has spread through avian populations in the past. Photo / Getty

Russia has reported the first case of transmission of the H5N8 strain of bird flu to humans, revealing that seven workers at a poultry farm were infected in December 2020.

Russian officials reported that the World Health Organisation has been alerted.

The H5N8 is highly infectious in birds and has a mortality rate of at least 75 per cent.

Although this is the first reported case of transmission to humans, its appearance in avian populations has led to widespread culls of farmed birds in the past.

As recently as December, hundreds of thousands of birds were culled in the UK after the virus was detected.

A pathologist at the state agriculture agency in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, examines a wild duck. Photo / Getty

Anna Popova, head of Russian consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, announced the findings on state TV.

She said there was no evidence that the virus could be transmitted between humans and said that all seven workers had recovered.

"This situation did not develop further," Popova said.

H5N8 is a subtype of avian influenza that has never been reported in humans but others, such as H5N1, have sparked fears of a deadly pandemic due to their high mortality rate.

Popova said that "time will tell" if the H5N8 strain mutates further.

"The discovery of these mutations when the virus has not still acquired an ability to transmit from human to human gives us all, the entire world, time to prepare for possible mutations and react in an adequate and timely fashion," she added.

The head of Russia's Vektor State Virology and Biotechnology Centre spoke on television to assure Russians that his lab was prepared to develop test kits and work on a vaccine for H5N8, emphasising that there had not yet been evidence of human-to-human transmission.

"However, the new bird flu virus has a high mortality rate among the animals and doesn't cause any symptoms," Maksyutov said.