3 Weeks After Contracting the Rare H5N6 Bird Flu Strain, a Woman in China Dies

According to Metro, a 33-year-old lady in China passed away three weeks after testing positive for the H5N6 type of bird flu. Shortly after visiting a chicken market in the Sichuan province city of Bazhong, she contracted the unusual type of deadly illness.

The report said that the unidentified lady passed away on November 14 from her sickness after being taken to the hospital on October 22. This week, news of her death has surfaced. With a 39% death rate, the H5N6 strain is thought to be the deadliest.
According to Metro, the strain has been affecting a lot of individuals in China recently, which has specialists worried.

88 H5N6 cases have been documented worldwide in the last ten years or so. The Center for Health Protection in Hong Kong issued a report on Tuesday that said that 87 of those were in mainland China.

According to a World Health Organization (WHO) official quoted by Metro, “the increase in the number of reported human cases of an H5N6 infection may reflect the continued circulation of the virus in birds, as well as enhanced surveillance system and diagnostic capacity as a direct outcome of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Only in the last four years has H5N6 been found in Asia, according to the World agency for Animal Health (WOAH), an international agency that regularly disseminates information on animal illnesses.

The National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom reports that H5N6 has also been detected in some wild birds there. It was said that intimate contact with an infected bird—dead or alive—is how the bird flu spreads. The health agency said that consuming fully cooked chicken or eggs might expose humans to bird flu.

Additionally, it has recommended against going to chicken markets while visiting nations where bird flu has been reported.