China reports first human case of H10N3 bird flu

A man in eastern China has contracted the world's first reported human case of the H10N3 strain of bird flu. Photo / Wolfgang Mennel, Unsplash

A man in eastern China has contracted what might be the world's first human case of the H10N3 strain of bird flu, but the risk of large-scale spread is low, Beijing says.

The 41-year-old man in Jiangsu province, northwest of Shanghai, was hospitalised on April 28 and is in stable condition, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on its website today.

No human case of H10N3 has been reported elsewhere, the commission said.

H10N3 is a low pathogenic, or relatively less severe, strain of the virus in poultry and the risk of it spreading on a large scale was very low, the NHC added.

Many different strains of avian influenza are present in China and some sporadically infect people, usually those working with poultry.

There have been no significant numbers of human infections with bird flu since the H7N9 strain killed around 300 people during 2016-2017.