The WHO still doesn’t know how he became infected.

The death occurred at the end of April, but only now has the WHO confirmed the circumstances.

The causative variant is not related to the one affecting cattle in the United States.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the first human death due to complications caused by bird flu infection. The deaths are linked to the A(H5N2) subtype of the flu, which is different from the one wiping out American dairy farms.

The first person to die. This became known today, but death occurred on April 24 in Mexico City, Reuters reports. This is a 59-year-old man, a resident of the state of Mexico, who was admitted to a hospital in Mexico City.

According to the WHO, on the 17th, the person began showing symptoms including fever, difficulty breathing, diarrhea, nausea and discomfort, and was admitted to hospital on the 24th, where he died soon after. As far as is known, there was no human contact with birds or livestock.

The Mexican government’s health ministry stressed that this case does not mean there is a risk to the population.

Prerequisites. The deceased had various health problems which could explain why the disease was fatal in this case. This is the first confirmed death of a person infected with avian influenza subtype A(H5N2).

H5N1 or H5N2. It should be noted that this is a different subtype from the one currently common north of the Rio Grande. The United States is facing a serious outbreak of avian influenza, in this case subtype A(H5N1).

According to the latest data in the United States, three people have been infected with the disease this year, with no deaths. The epidemic has already affected almost 97 million birds in poultry farms, almost 9,400 wild birds and 81 herds of dairy cows.

A zoodemicextended. In any of its variants, bird flu continues to spread in different parts of the world. In Spain, the flu season ended more successfully, with 24 cases reported in different parts of the country, all in wild birds.

The disease does not pose a great danger to humans. Infections have (at least until now) occurred in industrial workers who were in close contact with birds and other animals. There are no known cases of transmission of the virus between people, and we are now faced with the first laboratory-confirmed death.

There are two problems now. On the one hand, a large number of animals are slaughtered in livestock and poultry farms to stop the spread of the disease. Secondly, there is the risk associated with a large number of cases, since the more animals affected, the greater the likelihood that the virus will mutate and more easily pass to humans.

In Hatak | The world is facing one of the largest bird flu outbreaks in its history. The WHO takes this completely calmly.

Image | Artem Belyaykin / Alejandro Barba