(TheIndependentStar.com) – COVID-19 has carved a path throughout the world. While its origins in China are currently under review, the devastation seems to be winding down in the United States.
Just as everyone is beginning to breathe easier, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) confirmed the first human case of the H10N3 bird flu in the country on June 1, 2021. Should we be asking if this is COVID 2.0?
China confirms first human case of H10N3 bird flu: reporthttps://t.co/kcqaGPpmaZ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 1, 2021
The NHC announcement explained that one patient has tested positive. He has been hospitalized since April 28 after presenting with fever and other flu symptoms, but the diagnosis didn’t come until a month later, with the announcement arriving soon after.
The man is from Zhenjiang, in the eastern province of Jiangsu. Health officials have conducted contact tracing and have not found other positive cases within his close contacts. There is no clear explanation for how he contracted the virus.
According to the NHC, the potential for spreading H10N3 is low, but as we learned during the pandemic, there is reason to believe the organization is not entirely trustworthy. In 2016 and 2017, another strain of bird flu killed 300 people, so this new case is certainly cause for concern. That said, H10N3 is a less severe strain, and the CDC says avian influenza is not common in humans unless they work closely with poultry.
So while another virus out of China is certainly alarming, it seems there is no cause for panic this time around. Not yet, anyway.
Copyright 2021, TheIndependentStar.com
